
Class ..DTjli 

Book n (o 

Gopyiight.N'.V 

COfVRIGIIT DEPOSIT 



12- 



South of 
Suez 





A SIniii! ur I'ctty Chicll;iiii ol the Slmaii Slock, \\ nh 

Headdress of Tufts of Lions' Tails, Garments of Velvet 

and Silk, Shield Studded With Gold and a High- 

Powered Rifle. 



South 




of 



r^'? 



Suez 



*»_■==;:?'•>■ II ■ nTt :.j/ 



* •'.■> 



William Ashlery Anderson 



Illustrated 




T^ew Tor\ 

Robert M. McBride ^ Co, 
1920 



Copyright, 1920, b^i 
Robert M. McBride & Co. 







Published August, 1920 

SEP 29 I92U ' - 



©CU576935 



To those absent and distant friends, 
with whom I may never walk again, hut 
in whose memory I live and who will 
always live in mine . , . to them who 
have unconsciously proven to me that 
there is something more in life than all 
its grim reality, who have taught me that 
in the stinking slime of the village pool is 
where the lotus blooms, and with whom I 
have learned that the best of life is in 
dreams and the memory of dreams, 
though dreams never mastered them and 
illusions never lured them from the safe 
humorous cynicism that knows the most 
magnificent roar of the lion is, after all, 
a glorious and satisfying belch! 

May they always find water by the 
baobab, and gin for the mahdafu. . . . 

Jambo! 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A Coin Is Spun 1 

Soldiers, Sand, and Sentiment .... 6 

Aden op Araby 31 

Cross and Scimitar in Abyssinia: 

I. The Prince Dons a Turban ... 65 

II. Revenge of Abou "Roll-Them-Up" . 87 
III. Triumph of Zeoditou, Daughter of 

MeneHk Ill 

Es-Sawahil 141 

Zanzibar — The Spicy Isle 151 

The Wilderness Patrol 189 

KwA Heri 235 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

A sTium or petty chieftain of the Shoan stock, 
with headdress of tufts of lions' tails, gar- 
ments of velvet and silk, shield studded with 
gold, and a high-powered rifle . . Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

By the edge of the Canal, excavating the con- 
tinually seeping sands of the desert ... 16 

Looking into the Crater, old Aden, from above 
the Tanks built during a civilisation of which 
nothing is known 17 

A bit of the Aden bazaar, with the cTioM, or jail, 

on the left 32 

The drying water-hole, a remarkable impression 
of thorn bush and animal life — oryx and im- 
palla 33 

(A) The first picture of the apostate Prince, 
Lidj Yassou, taken in the turban of a Mussul- 
man 65 

(B) A Somali of the Benadir Coast. The won- 
derful teeth of the Somalis are preserved with 

the mushmak, a chewed twig 65 

Lidj Yassou, as the reigning Prince of Abyssinia, 

in his most gorgeous raiment 66 

Negro border tribesmen from the Equatorial 

Provinces of Southern Abyssinia .... 76 
(A) The Beau Brummel of a small native village 

near Nairobi 77 

ix 



X ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

(B) Somali women of the Ogaden and Somaliland 

are as fine of feature 77 

One of the last pictures of Menelik II, King of 
Kings of Ethiopia, seated in state with mem- 
bers of his Council 87 

Camp visitors along the old trade route between 

Nairobi and the Abyssinian frontier . . . 88 

The victorious Shoan army marching about fifty 
thousand strong before the Empress Zeoditou 
after destroying Ras Mikael's invading army 
a few days previously beyond the hills . . Ill 

The Franco-Ethiopian Railway, the principal 
outlet of Abyssinia, and the only practical 
means of conquering the desert girt empire . 112 

Mombasa, the entrepot for British East Africa, 
presents a mixture of civilisation and sav- 
agery typifying the East Coast .... 144 

Itinerant witch doctors in the Lake district . . 145 

Zanzibar, chief port of the East African Coast, 
formerly the centre of the slave trade, show- 
ing on the right the Sultan's palace . . . 162 

A corner of the Goanese market in Nairobi, Brit- 
ish East Africa, between five and six thou- 
sand feet above sea and virtually on the 
equator 163 

The line of a "peace" safari winding in single file, 
porters bearing fifty-pound loads en route for 
the Valley of Liona 196 

An iCgoma in the form of a tribal dance of the 

Kikuyu, the dancers circling in couples . . 197 



ILLUSTRATIONS xi 

FACING 
PAGE 

A family gathering in a Masai manyeta behind a 

thick hedge of impenetrable thorn bush . . 206 

A Massai brave with one of his wives, along the 

edge of the Massai Steppe 207 

Massai women elaborately gowned to pay a morn- 
ing caU 209 

An old Massai woman — about thirty — eldest wife 

of the headman of a manyeta . . . • • 210 

A scouting party of Meru Massai .... 216 

Rhino killed at sixty-one feet when charging. 
The antics of this blundering beast send the 
porters flying into the thorn trees for shelter 217 

Askaris with Shirati wiyes, in the Muanza dis- 
trict. The white crescent over the asJeari's 
forehead is the tootK of a hippo .... 222 

Shirati wives of Kikuyu asTcaris, in the Muanza 

district, German East Africa 223 

Flying column entraining at Voi in steel carriages 

of the Uganda Railway 223 

Kikuyu men with their wives gathered for a feast 
and dance. Anklets and leggings of brass 
wire, zebra and monkey skins . . . . . 230 

A Kikuyu showing his tribal marks .... 231 

Characteristic "Kikuyus" in front of their banda 
of mud-and-thatch where pestilential insects 
hide 231 

Unmarried girls of the Ruanda district gathered 
to catch a glimpse of the new political officer 
on his first visit to conquered territory . . 234 

War Dance of the Meru Massai . . . . . 235 




A Coin Is Spun 

MOROSE and rebellious, victims more of a 
mood of depression than of any tangible 
menace, we stepped out of the gloom of a 
grey fog into the dry, smoke-filled atmosphere 
of a low-ceiHnged room where tables were lit- 
tered about, and surly, red-faced men argued 
in rising and falling cadence over matters of 
great moment to the world but of little moment 
to them. 

A querulous voice insisted: 

"All I says is, keep their hands offer us I 
Europe's none of our business; and we don't 
want none of theirs!" . . . 

Another more sensible voice bawled with in- 
dignant and reiterated determination: 

"A lil' piece-a cheese, Sharley! ... A lil' 
piece-a cheese, Sharley! ... I wanta piece-a 
cheese, Sharley! . . . And some mustard!" . . . 

The cash register behind the bar was musically 
tolling its chimes; a rattle of knives and forks 
and roughly handled dishes gave a clue to the 

[i] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

door of the adjoining restaurant; and from a 
breezily decorated room in back came the disturb- 
ing syncopations of a small stringed band. We 
went thither; found a table in the comer; and 
ordered seidels of Pilsener and a small tureen 
of Long Island Golden Buck. 

When we had eaten, and the long, cool beer 
had somewhat soothed us, we turned in our 
chairs and watched the few dancers with cynical 
attention. The music was good, the dancing was 
pleasant to watch, and the place was respectable. 
But its name was Germania Hall; and we had 
both just failed to have our services accepted in 
Belgium. . . . 

New York was smothering us. 

The throngs of restless, useless men in the 
streets exasperated us; the futile gatherings by 
the bulletin boards amused and then enraged us ; 
the unimportance of our own work in a world 
that was more and more insisting on primitive 
action worked upon our spirits with a depressing 
effect, and we felt a growing and irresistible de- 
termination to get out and do something — do we 
cared not what; go we cared not whither. Ac- 
customed to wide places, we wanted again to 
stretch our arms and test our strength with prob- 

[2] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

lems that were not inextricably intertwined with 
commuters' trains and daily schedules. 

I drew a coin from my pocket and looked at 
my companion. He caught my meaning in- 
stantly. His face brightened and he grinned. 

"All right," he said. "Heads, it's South 
America." 

"Tails, it's Africa," I added, and spun the 
coin. . . . 

Two weeks later we sailed for Africa. 

In these sketches of some of the incidents that 
have filled the years since then there are gaps, 
there are wilful omissions (especially of war 
events; for of that we weary), there is no real 
continuity in my grouping, because fate has 
scattered my cards like a marked deck flung in 
the face of a gambler. Only you who know 
can read in them other tales by observing closely 
the little points that mark the cards. And now 
that it is over, there surges up the same unrest, 
because the world, we know who know the far 
places, is not at peace, and uncertainty still stirs 
vaguely within. 

The cogitations of the men at Versailles are 
forced to embrace Mkwa, the Massai warrior, 
dead chieftain of the same folk from whom 

[3] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

my bee-hunting hilongozi quailed when we de- 
bouched from the dark forest. Suddenly in the 
same capital there appear Abyssinian raseSj men 
whom I saw in mediaeval warfare to preserve 
their ancient empire, now offering it as a vassal 
state of France. At my elbow there is a little 
machine through which blithely sounds the voice 
of my chum, whom I had more than once thought 
of burying under the palms of Dar-es-Salaam. 
The chapters have ended pleasantly; but there 
are letters in my mail from Madagascar, China, 
and Singapore. And there are rising doubts in 
my mind. 

"I am of this mind with Homer," said Lyly, 
*'that as the snaile that crept out of her shel was 
turned eftsoones into a toad, and thereby was 
forced to make a stoole to sit on ; so the traveller 
that stragleth from his owne country is in a short 
time transformed into so monstrous a shape, that 
he is f aine to alter his mansion with his manners, 
and to hve where he can, not where he would." 

In that, old friends of mine, there is a melan- 
choly truth. But though we can never gather 
by one single hearth, the wind of reminiscence 
will blow us to many reunions. And memory 
may outlive matter! 

[4] 




Soldiers, Sand, and Sentiment 

AS we came up from tiffin, there, lying flat 
as an adder in the sun, mottled with 
bleached colour, was Port Said, on its spit of 
Egyptian sand. A fishing-fleet of feluccas 
clung to the edge of the shallow beach like 
crumbs upon a withered hp, and the mouth of 
the canal was choked with shipping. 

There was hardly any of the old-time chatter 
of enthusiasm. Most of us had seen it all be- 
fore. An officer, who had cultivated the habit 
of rubbing his left arm briskly by way of eco- 
nomical massage, smiled wryly, and said: 

"Well, vacation's over. Here we are back at 
the old shop with lots of unfinished business." 

That was the general attitude. 

The decks were crowded with convalescent 
officers, young and old, all men who had been 
in heavy action — at Ypres, at Loos, at Hulluch, 
at Suvla Bay, in the North Sea, and in the 
^gean. As for the others, they also served — 
pink-faced boys with new, faultless tropical 

[5] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

gear, on their way out as substitutes to Basra 
in the Gulf, or to bury themselves in remote posts 
of the Soudan; a few frightened Egyptian 
officials, happy enough at getting home, yet 
doubtful of what awaited them; some blase 
Frenchmen ; a governor or two of unmapped dis- 
tricts in the Far East; well-ciu-ried traders, too 
old for the trenches, but more than fit to keep 
England's chests filled with gold; some unob- 
trusive children; and a number of sweet-faced 
EngHsh wives, shining examples, with smiling 
faces and gentle hands, sharing their large part 
of the Empire's burden. So there they all were 
together, a boat-load of them, bruised sinews of 
a world empire; and there before them was that 
strange anomaly. Port Said, a vampire sucking 
up the blood of men, and a horn of plenty pour- 
ing forth the wealth of the Orient. 

We rounded the breakwater, and the great 
P. & O. Hner, with a bellow of palpable relief 
at having passed the hazards of the Mediter- 
ranean, slid self-consciously past the irregular 
row of cynical, lumpy, bulbous French cruisers 
— ^which, with those ubiquitous French ensigns, 
long lines of drying clothes, flying between the 
masts, and anchor-eyes oozing rust, plainly in- 

[6] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

dicated that they, also, had been flirting with 
death on the high seas — and came to anchor 
close to the customs jetty along the Bund. 

The tender slipped alongside to put the agent 
aboard; the small harbour craft poked in and 
out, while their dusky scullers waved their red 
fezzes and screamed for passengers; the winches 
roared and struggled with the freight ; the great 
coal-hulks, alive with grimy black men chewing 
hunks of dry bread and spitting out verbal filth, 
fastened themselves to the towering vessel Hke 
xinclean monsters — and the agony was on. 

"Phew!" said the Australian major, wiping 
the soot from his eyes, "this is rotten. I'm not 
going to stick it much longer." Which struck 
me as rather remarkable, coming from a man 
who had survived five months in the trenches of 
Anzac before being mauled about by a Turkish 
shell — especially as he had only one useful leg 
to hobble away on. 

On my other hand was a Scotch skipper, bound 
for Singapore as a passenger — a very remark- 
able man even in normal times; one who had 
ploughed his dogged way through the channels 
of every sea, gathering experiences as a ship 
gathers barnacles. He had crashed through 

[7] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Formosan junks, weathered typhoons and bliz- 
zards, raced with hostile submarines, and, I have 
reason to beheve, was even on hand to aid in sal- 
vaging the Audacious — if salvaged she was. 
Short, powerful, imperturbable as to face, nimble 
as to wit, he had a great heart and fearless lips. 
Cocking a waggish eye at me, he removed the 
pipe from his mouth and nodded toward shore. 
I deprecated the suggestion. 

"Only to send a cable," said I, "and to buy 
a new topi." 

"Oh, ay," said the skipper. "They never go 
for more." 

"What," said the major, "and aren't you going 
ashore?" 

"Now look ye here," demanded the skipper, 
scornfully, "do I look like such a fool? What's 
there to see, ay? A bloomin' lot o' niggars and 
greasy Egyptians. Ye go up to the hotel and 
have a cup o' black coffee, and grin wi' delight, 
and pay one-and-sixpence for it. And maybe 
ye see some sodgers loafin' about the streets, 
and maybe ye don't. Or else ye go up to Simon 
Arts and buy some curios for the wee uns at 
home. If ye stop aboard they'll all come back, 
fast enough, sick of it, wi' their bellies full. . . ." 

[8] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

"And how about 'Madame Binat and a Zan- 
zibar dance of the finest'?" I suggested. 

He wheeled about and studied me for a mo- 
ment under half -closed eyelids. 

*'0h, ay," he said, grinning broadly. "So 
that's it. But ye'll find no more o' that. These 
are war-times. It's not the old place, ye know." 

This was true. The place was no longer as 
it had been in the old days of home-going 
Colonials and tourists who measured each new 
thrill with their purse-strings. Where were the 
boats with the Levantine girls — doe-eyed girls 
with only the faintest hard hues about their lips, 
strumming mandolins and guitars, and trying 
desperately, with their thin, spiritless voices, to 
lend a note of gaiety to "Funicula," despite the 
clattering roar of winches and the howling of 
the grimy coal-wallahs? Where were the grin- 
ning Arab and Somali boys, mocking the singers 
with burlesque chatter as they gambolled in the 
muddied water, diving for coins as cormorants 
dive for fish? And where was the sleek, sala- 
cious presence at the elbow, unobtrusive though 
ubiquitous, breathing in oily accents : "Salamat. 
Sir, you want to see naughty peektures? Look, 
sir — French peektures. One bob"? Gone I 

[9] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Faded away into the unhealthy, mythical past 
of peace and prosperity. 

Nevertheless, feeling supremely self-con- 
scious, I slipped away from the skipper's ac- 
cusing glance and sought the Girl from Kep- 
pel Harbor to see if there were any commissions 
I could perform ashore. Then I joined the 
mixed crowd that eddied about the gangway and 
flowed in an unbroken procession of skiffs 
toward the customs jetty, where several Egyp- 
tian officials were examining passports and in- 
specting the landing passengers. As I went 
over the side, the skipper shook his pipe at me 
and called: 

"No funny business, now. Ye mind the notice 
in the smoking-room?" 

But I went blithely ashore, sniffing reminis- 
cently the commingled stinks that are the per- 
fume of the Orient. And here I was plucked 
out of the merry hne by a little slip of an Egyp- 
tian official, clad in the raiment of a New York 
Benjamin, plus a red fez. As his eye fell upon 
my passport, he looked plainly startled. 

"You are Americainf 

"Certainly. You see my passport." 

"Sorree. You cannot land." 
[10] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

He handed back the passport, readjusted his 
fez nervously, and turned to the next apphcant 
with such an air of finality that for a moment 
I stood there uncertainly. Then I took him by 
the elbow. I told him, gently, that it would be 
necessary for me to see some one of higher 
authority. i 

In the course of the next three minutes I 
passed through the hands of two more startled 
officials and two indignant harbour policemen, 
whom I wilfully mistook for local guides; but 
in the end I only succeeded in landing myself 
in front of a counter in the passport bureau, be- 
side the barrier. Several sweating, vociferous, 
bespectacled Egyptians, behind the counter, were 
waving papers and shouting incoherently at ft 
dazed, shuffling mob, shaken, like vermin, from! 
the very tail of Asia. My case was settled 
rapidly^ 

"Impossible," said the chief. 

"Damn it! ..." I exploded. 

"No matter," said he, "it's impossible." 

At this moment a trim little Frenchwoman, 
bareheaded and dressed in a neat black skirt, 
slipped up to me, scribbled on a piece of paper, 
and thrust it into my hand. 

[11] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

"Passezf said she. 

I was astonished. "Thank you," I said 
pohtely. 

"Passe%l' she repeated coldly, and looked at 
me with hard eyes. I examined the paper. It 
was a permit to retm'n to the vessel. They 
would not let me land at all, and apparently 
they would not let me depart without special 
permission. I elbowed my way back furiously 
to the counter; but a British army officer spied 
me and, working his way quickly through the 
crowd before I could say anything, laid a 
friendly hand on my arm. 

"I'm afraid it's no use," he said. "You see, 
the whole blessed place is a war zone now. 
You're practically in the trenches; and they're 
awf'ly particular. Good Lord! I'm having 
trouble myself, and if they won't let an army 
man through, it doesn't seem likely they'll let 
a stranger pass, does it?" 

He was hardly more than a boy; but he was 
a captain, and I saw he belonged to a regiment 
that had fought hard in Gallipoli. It suddenly 
occurred to me that I was making an ass of my- 
self, and a general nuisance to people engaged 
on a mighty serious business — a nation strug- 

[12] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

gling to keep its head literally above water. I 
turned away from the counter. 

"I suppose you'i^ right," I admitted. 

"It's hard lines," he said. 

"Not at all. I should have imderstood. I've 
no right to bother your people here just for the 
sake of a cup of black coffee." 

We both laughed. He was a nice chap, with 
a friendly smile and candid eyes, and I should 
have liked to make his better acquaintance. It 
must have dawned on both of us at the same 
time how bitter, in a way, are these war-time 
meetings; for suddenly we shook hands. He 
was on his way to his death, for all I knew; and 
for all he knew, I was drifting merrily and care- 
lessly about the world. 

"Good luck," I said. 

"Thank you." 

And he disappeared in the crowd, and I went 
slowly back to the jetty. However, I wandered 
aside from the landing-stage, and was about to 
accept the services of a ravenous crowd of un- 
licensed boatmen who came over the edge of 
the wharf and swarmed at me like Gulf pirates 
over the edge of a dhow, when the two harbour 
policemen converged upon me, gesticulating 

[13] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

violently and shouting all manner of Egyptian 
slang. It was plain I had wandered away from 
the official landing-stage and was being ordered 
back into line. It is not exactly pleasant for an 
old resident of the East to be ordered about by 
a native policeman; and then it suddenly oc- 
curred to me that here was an opportunity with 
a bit of strategy to get past the barrier, after 
all, for the choki was in the heart of the town. 
So I remained where I was, and used language 
that would have convulsed a camel-driver; but 
it was useless provocation. 

They regarded me, for a moment, with dark- 
ening faces, uncertain what to do. Then they 
conferred under their breath, shrugged their 
shoulders simultaneously, and walked deliber- 
ately away. There remained nothing for me to 
do but to clamber into a bumboat. In a few 
minutes I was aboard once more. As I crossed 
the ship's deck, there was the skipper, feet wide 
apart, head tilted back, eyeing me severely under 
lowered lids. 

"Ye blitherin' fool," said he, "did I not teU 
ye to stop yer funny business?'* 

I laughed at him. 

So he took me by the arm and guided me to 
[14] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

the smoking-room, where a notice was posted 
pertaining to passports. And I read thereon 
that any one endeavouring to pass the barrier 
by any irregularity or subterfuge whatsoever 
would be subjected to the complete operations 
of martial law, 

I made my way soberly to the other end of 
the boat, to a shady spot under the bridge, where 
I found the Girl from Keppel Harbor reading 
a book of Bartimeus's yarns, and sought to divert 
myself with her naive wit. She was in a bhthe 
mood, and we chatted merrily ; but, before I was 
quite aware of it, she was giving me a horrifying 
personal accoimt of the Singapore mutiny. 
And then I realised definitely that war was a 
complete obsession. 

Ambition was dead ; Adventure was dead ; Ro- 
mance was dead. An inkling of this had been 
borne in on me in London — black, asthmatic 
London, where only hectic men and crippled 
men were left in peace, if peace there be in 
gloomy reflections and gloomier prospects. All 
delicate and fine Amotions had been absorbed in 
the dull pain. Fathers no longer thought 
proudly of their sons' futures ; subalterns did not 
dream of becoming great generals; sweethearts 

[16] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

had no plans for the happy return of then* loved 
ones; no one considered his own future or his 
own desires. It had suddenly been borne in 
upon them that life is entirely too transitory and 
uncertain. There was no spontaneous, heartfelt 
merriment; there was no true wit. Whether 
consciously or unconsciously, all light amuse- 
ments were carried on abstractedly, hke the 
gaiety of the comedian who knows there is a 
tragedy behind the painted scenery. 

It was not depression ; it was simply that the 
individual consciousness was sunk in the national. 
No matter how these people may scorn the 
philosophy, they had adopted the philosophy of 
the Germans. A dead man, a shattered man, a 
pitiful woman — it was nothing, so long as the 
nation stood firm. "C'est la guerre!' said the 
armless Frenchman at Marseilles, shrugging his 
shoulders. "Oh, yes, it'll be all right again," 
said the Australian major, swaying on his 
crutches. "I'll be back in the trenches in two 
months." Most of them were out here to fight 
the Turks, or the Bulgars, or the Greeks; but 
principally the Sick Man of Europe. 

That night, as I gazed into the star-sprinkled 
darkness of the desert across the salt-works in 

[16] 




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:2i 




SOUTH OF SUEZ 

the direction of Jaffa, I remembered it was here 
that "the sick man took up his bed and walked." 
And I also remembered that where the salt- 
heaps gleamed white in the gloom, Hke the tents 
of a vast, ghostly army, a young Macedonian 
named Alexander had once marched. Then I 
thought of that empire upon whose dominions 
the sun never sets; and of the Frenchman, De 
Lesseps; and the Canal, the weakest link in the 
Empire; and I dreamed that an answer was 
ready to the ancient query: What happens 
when an irresistible force meets an immovable 
body? 

The ship did not move till daylight. There 
was much to be done. The bunkers were 
crammed with coal; cargo was discharged; the 
naval gun was lifted from the stern; fresh 
vegetables were taken aboard for barren Aden, 
cut off from the mainland by the Turks ; and the 
pilot-house was banked with sandbags. 

As the white sun rose out of Asia, I stepped 
out of my cabin in kimono and sandals and 
looked across the first sweep of Arabian desert. 
We had already left Port Said behind us and 
were well on our way through the big trench. 

At first there was nothing at all remarkable 
[17] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

in the scene; I might have been on the platform 
of an observation-car that had just cleared the 
Lucian Cut-off and was sweeping through wes- 
tern Utah. It was flatter, though, with undula- 
tions that merged into one another so cunningly 
that armies could march across the plain without 
being observed; and a horseman, riding straight 
away from the Canal, would be lost behind the 
hummocks as you watched him. So it is not re- 
markable that, as I gazed across the dead salt 
desert, where nothing apparently could Hve, I 
only became aware by degrees that vague objects 
moved and vanished in the distance; but gradu- 
ally the shapes took form, and I found that the 
sands were full of httle groups of horsemen, 
camelmen, infantrymen, in patrols and outposts, 
hke the Httle lead soldiers we played with as 
children. And along the very edge of the Canal 
were motionless sentinels, standing or squatting 
under mat shelters to protect them from the blaze 
of the tropical sun. The desert had a hundred 
thousand eyes and a million stings. 

The early risers began to come on deck, to go 
through their Swedish drill, to stretch their 
bruised muscles, to gaze again upon familiar 
scenes. 

[18] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

"We'll be at Kantarah soon," said a young, 
grey-eyed officer of the Indian Marine. 

I looked forward. The Canal wound grace- 
fully away to the southward, fringed on the 
Egyptian side by a refreshing growth of green 
palms and drab acacias, broken at long intervals 
by tiny bungalows, where employes of the Canal 
Company kept eternal watch over the company's 
interests, much as the armed sentries across the 
way stood guard for the Empire. On the 
Arabian side was nothing but the billowing sand, 
crowding itself to the very water's edge and 
seeping into the channel itself, despite the re- 
vetments of stone brought in ballast from far 
countries to hold the tiny particles in check, de- 
spite the great dredges that prowl up and down, 
sucking at the invading streams like monstrous 
anteaters facing a migratory tide of insects. 

"Kantarah?" 

"Yes. There it is now." His face became 
animated. Leaning far forward, he fixed his 
gaze on the approaching spot; and there, sure 
enough, was Kantarah, the point nearest Port 
Said where the Turks had attempted to cross. 

"How far did they get?" I asked. 

"Not far." He grinned. "I was in charge 
[19] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

of a couple of armed tugs. We kept running 
up and down from here to Ishmailieh, banging 
away in the dark." 

"But they reached the Canal?'* 

"Oh, yes. They launched some pontoons — 
two. There's one now. The other's down at 
Ishmailieh." 

There, just swinging into the Kant ar ah bank 
at the end of a cable, for all the world hke a 
Chinese ferry on the Grand Canal, loaded with 
Indian troops, horses, and fodder, was a barge- 
like iron pontoon. I recognised its German 
origin; for I had seen such before. But this was 
the first vessel I had ever known to cross a desert 
that tries the stamina of Bedouins and the en- 
durance of dromedaries. It was not the last. 
There was another at Ishmailieh. And at Port 
Tewfik there was a long row of them, punctured 
by shrapnel and bullets, filled with sand, and used 
as a causeway. 

It was in my heart to feel sympathy for the 
wasted efforts of .these surprising Turks. It 
will be a long while before we understand the 
organisation of the army that crossed the desert, 
dragging pontoons and heavy guns, effecting 
simultaneous attacks at three main points on a 

[20] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

front extending a hundred miles along a barren 
shore, with a salt desert as a base ; and persisting 
in the attacks to the point of launching several 
pontoons — six of which, probably, could have 
supported a bridge and afforded sufficient 
accommodation for a strong advance-guard. 
There was one thing, however, that aroused 
equal admiration; it was the appalling neatness 
with which the attack was smashed. It was as 
though three serpents, having crawled across the 
desert, reared their heads simultaneously, only 
to have them completely crushed by several very 
large and very determined hobnailed boots. 

It was all explained to me in detail, but I 
cannot explain it to you. 

Nevertheless, I should like to have picked 
Kantarah camp up bodily and deposited it some- 
where near Plattsburg. It was a delight; per- 
fect, so far as I could see, in every detail, from 
the adobe buildings that held headquarters to 
the camel patrols, drifting in a mist of sand 
along the eastern rim of the desert. Trenches, 
sentinels, outposts ; battalions of infantry wheel- 
ing about on the floor of the desert; signalmen 
wig-wagging in squads like white and scarlet 
poppies tossed about by the winds; camel corps 

[21] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

and cavalry squadrons; field-guns and heavier 
artillery behind the low hills on the Egyptian 
side of the moat-like Canal. All were there, all 
in their correct proportions, and each pecuharly 
fit for this particular brand of warfare. 

From Kantarah to the powerfully fortified 
camp at Ishmaiheh the vessel passed literally be- 
tween two lines of trenches. It was a pretty 
object-lesson to a man interested in defence 
against invasion, a veritable cinema film, every 
foot of which added an instructive picture. But 
vastly more interesting was the delight of the 
Indian army officers on board at the sight of 
familiar regiments — naked Brahmins squatting 
at the water's edge, washing their heads and 
rinsing their mouths, while in their midst stood 
some berry-brown English ofiicer, sleeves rolled 
up, shirt collar opened clear down to his chest, 
"shorts" permitting a generous expanse of 
weathered knee and calf, topi tilted back with 
all the cockiness of an opera-hat, and a light 
stick under his arm; Bikanirs swaying past on 
the towering camels of India, haughtily indiffer- 
ent to the passing liner, or casting incurious 
glances at the railings thronged with eager faces ; 
lancers from Bengal trotting by in patrols, on 

[22] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

graceful horses, daintily lifting their hoofs high 
in the heavy sand; an outpost of bewhiskered 
Punjaubis, leaning on their rifles and grinning 
with sheer delight. 

There was uproar in some of the native camps 
— camps of clustering mat huts with fires of 
twigs in the open places, sending aloft wisps 
of smoke like long, thin feathers; camps that 
might have been villages on the Indus or Irra- 
wady, except for the almost startling absence of 
women, babies, bullocks, and gaunt pariahs ; and 
having behind them, instead of green jungle, 
broad fields of barbed wire, ripe for the cutting 
if a reaper could be found. There was uproar, 
the natives streaming from their huts, hning up 
along the bank at sight of the great mail-boat 
sweeping past them on the road to Inde, and 
shouting and cheering, while the sahibs and 
memsahibs on board, forgetting all distinctions 
in the confraternity of empire, shouted and 
cheered back. 

"Jove!" said a flustered colonel, mopping his 
flushed face, as a new group came sliding along- 
side, "I didn't know they were here." Then, 
unable to contain himself, he leaned far over the 
railing, waving his topi, and bellowing: 

[23] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

"What regiment? What regiment? Court- 
ney Sahib J hai? Courtney Sahib! Oh, Court- 
ney! Courtney!" 

There was a break in the black line of shout- 
ing natives, and a silent, thin, self-contained 
officer was disclosed, wearing his bleached and 
abbreviated khaki with the careless ease of an 
old-timer. Instead of a topi he wore a turban, 
which was a bit of unconscious "swank," as the 
"subs" say. Twenty of his men looked at him 
and shouted, pointing upward at the ship sweep- 
ing past. The officer scanned the passengers 
with quizzical pleasure; but when, at length, his 
gaze lighted on the hoarse, furiously gesticulat- 
ing colonel, the sight electrified him. He threw 
up both arms in greeting, and ran up to his knees 
into the water. 

"Oh, it's you!" he shouted, joyfully. "Where 
to?" 

"Peshawur. Is Meadows with you?" 

"Yes. Back there in the sand. Where's old 
Strumleigh?" shrieked the officer, thinking he 
was not heard. "Strumleigh! Where's 'Billy 
Williams' Strumleigh?" 

A gale of laughter swept the side of the ship, 
for 'Billy Williams' is a drink. By the time the 

[24] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

laughter had subsided, the boat had passed out 
of caUing distance. The colonel looked dazedly 
at me, with a rather hopeless expression on his 
face. 

"But 'Billy Williams' is dead," he protested, 
mildly. "He was killed in Serbia, you know." 

I didn't know, but I thought I understood. 
I had a brief vision of three young subalterns 
twenty years ago, on shikar together in the 
Kashmiri hills. So I walked around to the other 
side, leaving the colonel murmuring inanely to 
himself, "By Jove! By Jove!" 

I found the Girl from Keppel Harbor reclin- 
ing in a long chair, for the moment obhvious 
to the panorama that was being reeled off under 
our very noses while she Hstened, with amiable 
abstraction, to the smiling remarks of an Irish 
subaltern, a broth of a lad, seated beside her on 
a camp-stool. You would not have thought, to 
look at the graceful, well-set length of him, and 
his laughing eyes and close-trimmed moustache, 
that his body had felt the bite of several bullets, 
his lungs had been torn with pneumonia, and 
his frost-bitten legs saved from the surgeon's 
scalpel and saw only at the risk of a mortifying 
body. To see his teeth flash and hear his low 

[25] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

laugh you never would have thought it. With 
vague reluctance I turned away, my attention 
diverted by new sights. 

There were regiments of white troops hnked 
along the Canal, many and many of them — Brit- 
ish, Australians and New Zealanders. The Aus- 
tralians were Americans in looks and tempera- 
ment. They sat on the bank on the Egyptian 
side, under the shade of a few sere palm-trees, 
shouting and bantering with the passengers, or 
plunging into the water in all their khaki kit for 
tins of cigarettes flung from the decks. I no- 
ticed one sohtary figure under a shady bank, 
fishing with a long bamboo pole. Came a loud, 
clear drawl from a fellow-countryman on board: 

"Pret-ty soft ! Pret-ty soft !" 

The bamboo pole was jerked up viciously. 
The fisherman glared at the boat. 

"Pretty soft!" he roared. "Pretty soft, hey? 
Why don't you come down here? This is a hell 
of a life, this is. No fish; and I haven't seen 
a dammed Turk in a month." And he placed 
the long pole at slope arms, climbed morosely 
up the bank, and disappeared behind a hillock. 

And so the ship passed on, with the passen- 
gers shouting, cheering, calling messages, hardly 

[26] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

ever at a loss to make themselves understood — 
recognising old regiments, old friends, recalling 
memories of the hills, the plains, the clubs of 
Bombay, and the great colonies south of the line. 

I came across an apprentice who was doing 
duty as fourth officer, in view of the shortage of 
men, standing unsupported on the five-inch rail- 
ing, swaying his body this way and that, waving 
his arms together, right to left, or one at a time, 
in all the complications of semaphore signalling. 
On shore, a good eighth of a mile away, another 
figure was answering him. Thus they talked in 
silence, until the angle of the boat forbade any 
further communication. Then he leaped down 
from the railing with the expression of one who 
has completed an errand. 

"Sending a message from my mother," he ex- 
plained, grinning. "Have a brother back there 
with the gunners." 

All day long this sort of thing continued, till 
it became commonplace, and the majority of the 
passengers wearily drowsed in their steamer- 
chairs — past Kantarah, past Ishmailieh, into the 
Bitter Lakes, where several North Sea trawlers 
went placidly about their business in the unfa- 
miliar waters, hunting for mines ; and a French 

[27] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

cruiser sat firmly on the mud — a steel citadel, 
frowning across the shimmering desert. . . . 

When we left the lakes, the sun was dechning 
rapidly. Now, if there's one thing more impres- 
sive than a desert sunrise, it's a desert sunset, as 
any guide will tell you at Shepheard's. So, al- 
most unconsciously, in ones and twos, the pas- 
sengers drifted over to the starboard side. Be- 
yond the Bitter Lakes the Canal had widened 
out, and the ship slipped through the still waters 
with ever-increasing speed, and the outposts on 
shore thinned as the country became more des- 
olate. 

An outcropping of the Libyan hills rose on 
the western horizon, and the great, red Egyptian 
sun plunged behind it, as a light passes behind a 
Japanese screen, throwing out bars and wisps 
of shifting colour. Sunset is probably the only 
moment of daylight when our thoughts are fo- 
cussed on supermundane things. Gazing in si- 
lent eye-worship at the heart of our constellation, 
we are strangely lifted out of ourselves, espe- 
cially on the edge of a desert where there are 
no petty distractions to draw aside our irrespon- 
sible, childish attention; we are suddenly over- 
come with a suffocating sense of physical minute- 

[28] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

ness, and at the same time filled with a feeling 
of spiritual expansion. As a result we stand 
dumb, filled with intangible memories, vague 
longings, and a melancholy unrest. The shad- 
ows, the solid banks of gold and purple and saf- 
fron, a silver-edged feather of a cloud high in 
the broad sky, a brief silhouette of camels on the 
sky-line, their riders gazing upward — all these 
things interpret the solenm silence. And as we 
gazed, forgotten was war and all its misery; the 
tumult suddenly was still. And then it was 
dark. Still I did not move. 

An arm was gently linked in mine. I glanced 
aside to see the skipper with his solemn face and 
waggish eyes. 

"Ay," he nodded, knowingly. "But yonder's 
the lights of Sooez." 

Twinkling on the horizon off our starboard 
bow were the lights of Suez, marking the end of 
the Canal. 

"We'll soon be out in the open. Are ye goin' 
to be long in the East?" he added suddenly. 

I nodded. 

"Then," he said, taking the pipe from his 
mouth and shaking it under my chin, "ye'd bet- 
ter take yer eyes off the sky and come down and 

[29] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

fill yer belly wi' substantial food. Star-gazing 
will never get ye anything in this world." 

Which I sorrowfully admitted to be a fact. 
So I joined him, and we went below. . . . But 
I caught a ghmpse of the young Irish officer and 
the Girl from Keppel Harbor standing in the 
shadows far forward, watching the moon rise out 
of the desert ; and I began to have my doubts. 



[30] 




|'A^ik^;rf^^■n,;^l^ili3i}n ■^TOtlir-'awOt"^^ 



Aden of Araby 

LEANING over the rail of a Nord Deutscher 
Lloyd steamer, safe in harbour after having 
been battered across the Indian Ocean by the 
young and lusty monsoon, I listened to the Ger- 
man doctor who stood beside me pointing out the 
flat, narrow isthmus, across which caravans came 
bearing the fruits and spices of Araby. Aden 
bulked ruggedly at the end of the isthmus like 
a rock in the loop of a sling poised for some 
unseen foe. 

"It's ugly," said the young doctor, reflectively, 
"and it's hot and dirty, but there are great possi- 
bilities . . ." 

After a couple of years, when I again entered 
the shimmering harbour and looked across the 
scorching white reaches of the Arabian shore, the 
old Deutscher was lying on a coral bed lapped 
by the waves of the China Sea. I do not know 
where the doctor breathed; but this I know — 
there was nothing on the wide seas that sailed 
from Bremen, and the Yemen gave forth noth- 

[31] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

ing but bullets from Austrian Mausers and dust 
djinns that came snorting and shrieking from the 
Hadremaut. The world of men had changed; 
but the barren rocks remained the same — a vast 
St. Michael anchored in a tepid sea, its crusted 
slopes rotting and quivering with humid heat, 
while around its verge a multitude of men of 
many races toiled in defiance of sun and sand, 
some as sentinels of an empire, but the most in 
the whimsical hope of insuring a happy old age. 

A mist of coal dust rose about the mail- 
steamer. Ports were closed; fans droned hope- 
lessly in the stifling cabins; distraught passen- 
gers wandered helplessly about the deck, mop- 
ping their faces, or stood at the port rail with 
glasses screwed to their eyes, gazing at Sheikh 
Othman, where they hoped for a sight of the 
venturesome Turks who had intruded to the 
very threshold of Aden. A few tossed idle coins 
among the coal-coolies, not realising that these 
were Bedouins and Fuzzy- wuzzies, men of un- 
conquered tribes. But none made a move to go 
ashore. 

The Scotch skipper, bound for Singapore to 
take command of a tanker, was standing beside 
me, poking his pipe gently in my ribs to empha- 

[ 32'] 







m 



< 




t-' 



o 








.^\h%^ 




SOUTH OF SUEZ 

sise a message for one of the pilots. Behind me 
the deck steward, a merry fellow, unseemly on 
a P. & O., was dancing to amuse some children. 

"Ho," he wheezed, stopping suddenly and fol- 
lowing my gaze shoreward, "there ain't many 
what goes ashore here, sir." 

"Ay," said the skipper, eyeing him commis- 
seratingly under half-closed lids, "we're aware 
o' that. But can ye tell me," he added, as the 
idea occurred to him, "what's become of the wee 
lads that dive for pennies?" 

The steward's face lighted with joy. "Ain't 
you heard abaht that, sir? Wy, last trip ort, 
whilst the passengers was throwin' them money, 
along comes a shark and bites a little shaver 
raight in two." 

The skipper glared at him. 

"Swelp me Gawd, sir," protested the steward, 
shrilly. "I seen it wiv me own eyes." 

That put the cap of gloom on all my antici- 
pations, because, for me, the one redeeming fea- 
ture of Aden's rocks was the living water that 
danced on the sandy shores. So I delayed no 
longer. I sought out my poetic companion, who 
was characteristically engaged in one of those 
earnest and lingering farewells that make sea- 

[33] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

voyages so very pleasant, and escorted him firmly 
to the head of the gangway. Then I went back 
for a few words with the Girl from Keppel 
Harbor. We were quite sure we should meet 
again ... in Penang, perhaps. 

"Insh'allahf' she said ; and we both laughed. 

The little Somali boys rose, grinning, to their 
feet, flung their weight on the long sweeps, and 
away we went, foaming across the blue water. 
We swirled past a grey British cruiser, a Rus- 
sian transport, in and out among high-pooped 
dhows with red Mohammedan flags fluttering 
astern and white sails swelling out like the 
breasts of swans, and straight across the bow of 
the fussy Tadjoura headed out of harbour on its 
weekly trip to D'jibouti, the port of the Abyssin- 
ian traders, across the gulf. We bumped the 
wet stone steps of the Abkari landing, and the 
baking, pitted rocks of Aden rose before us. 

Instantly the soft memories of overnight 
slipped from our minds. We were in a world 
of work once more. We registered ourselves in 
the little thatched cottage of the harbour po- 
lice, and were met by the Englishman whom I 
was relieving. The sun had treated him well. 
Except that he was somewhat anaemic and prone 

[34] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

to fever, over-silent, and with muscles that were 
slow to respond to his thoughts, he was little the 
worse for his two and a half years. As a mat- 
ter of fact, he said Aden was a relief from the 
Gold Coast. 

"But youVe been here before?" he asked as 
the car threaded among the mixed mob back of 
the landing-stage. 

I admitted it. "But that was a different mat- 
ter," I protested. "I was homeward bound. 
All I saw was Cowasjee's Parsi clerk feeding 
his lions, and the stuffed mermaid in Mouna's." 

The gloomy dejection that had fallen on my 
companion vanished in an instant. He sat up 
with a jerk. 

"What did you say?" he demanded. 

"Mermaid," explained the Englishman, turn- 
ing his head. "The fishermen catch them along 
the coast. Nothing's changed," he added plac- 
idly. "The lions have grown up, and had to be 
shipped to a zoo ; and they're building a railroad 
to Sheikh." 

He saw I was surprised. 

"Well, not exactly a pukka railroad. The 
military birds are doing it, of course — armoured 
locomotives, and all that. They don't intend to 

[35] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

pay dividends. But it's quite all right, just for 
the sake of hearing the whistle at night. Sounds 
like Euston — Euston — Euston. ..." 

The last words trailed off in a hoarse whisper. 
I looked at him in astonishment. His eyes were 
bulging, and his lips were fluttering. A camel- 
cart had swung into the road in front of us, and 
the Englishman was trying to concentrate in 
time to avoid it. But his muscles were too late 
in responding. We bent a mud-guard. The 
Englishman murmured plaintively to himself, 
and began to speak bitterly to the camel wallah 
in Arabic and Swahili. The coolie resented it, 
and a spindly Somali policeman came saunter- 
ing up, red tarbush cocked over his black brow, 
splay feet gently slapping the roadway, swing- 
ing a teakwood club with the insouciant air of a 
boulevardier. 

But we worked the car free and resumed our 
way around the Crescent, where Queen Victoria 
squats in leaden effigy upon a square block of 
stone and marshals behind her a drab array of 
hotels and pallid, flat-faced buildings hiding be- 
neath their porticos the activities of merchants, 
shipping-agents, consuls, curio-venders, and mil- 
itary and naval outfitters. We ran past moun- 

[36] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

tains of coal, and great sheds where the rattle 
of the riveter's hammer rose above the lapping 
of the waves, and through Hedjuff Gate on to 
the dust-swept plain of Maala. 

Here we came upon the little station, where 
a tiny train was huddled behind a square, block- 
like locomotive covered with sheet metal. As we 
approached, a whistle tooted, and the little col- 
oured train moved away among other larger 
blocks that were blue and white tinted godowns, 
and across a flat, brown stretch splotched with 
yellows and reds and big patches of blue sea; 
and suddenly there flashed into my startled mem- 
ory a picture of myself as a very little boy crawl- 
ing over an old Persian carpet, pushing a line of 
coloured blocks around the border, and tooting 
to myself with imaginative delight. 

Beyond the station were the native shipyards, 
where graceful dhows were being fashioned out 
of seasoned teak from Burma, and the docks of 
Maala village, piled high with congested cargo 
— for Aden, though grim, is great. The ships 
that come rolling into her port go staggering 
out. When the Phoenicians were trading in 
Tyrian dyes, Aden was sending spices northward 
for the embalming of Egyptian mummies; and 

[37] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

now that the Phoenicians are no more, Aden 
crams Welsh coal into great ships so that her 
spices may still be carried northward. 

The ships come laden with every variety of 
merchandise — cotton goods, yarn, agricultm*al 
implements, dynamos, motors, provisions, car- 
riages, and coal. The Aden gharry is sister to 
the rig in which the old New England farmer 
rides to town — sister, born of the same mother- 
factory in some mill town on green slopes beside 
the Housatonic; and the Somali's robe, copied 
from a Roman toga, is spun from cotton plucked 
by Carolina darkies. And the ships go out to 
the west, sunk well below the water-line, choked 
with hides, skins, spices, incense, and coffee, 
brought hither in dhows from the Benadir coast 
and all the Red Sea ports. 

Ascending the steep, tortuous slope of the 
Main Pass, we rolled through the deep, arched 
cleft in the volcanic ridge where the bones of 
Cain lie scorching in their tomb, and coasted 
down into the crater. Here was my future 
home. The eastern side of the extinct volcano 
had fallen into the sea, and the sun blazed in 
through the breach with all the fury of smothered 
flames. The encirchng mountains, rough, pitted, 

[38] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

barren as a crusted grate, seemed to shut out any 
possibility of a wind from the north, and filled 
the air with the dusty odour of cinders. 

So long as our car was in motion, dodging the 
great lumbering camels of India and the grace- 
ful creatures of Arabia, sleepy donkeys laden 
with panniers of water, ratthng automobiles, mil- 
itary motors — armoured or emblazoned with the 
red cross — flocks of fawn-coloured goats, and all 
the flowing mass of foot-traffic, the rush of air 
kept us reasonably comfortable; but when we 
had passed the first line of shops that front on 
the maidarij and came to a stop in the shadow 
of the great, rectangular, barrack-hke building 
that was at once our office, godown, and bimga- 
low, the heat seemed suddenly to fall upon us 
like thick, hairy blankets. We climbed languidly 
up the long flight of stone-arched* stairs to our 
mess quarters on the top floor, where a vast, 
tiled dining-room opened through spacious por- 
ticos upon a broad veranda overlooking the blue 
gulf. We sank into long chairs, and called for 
first-aid. 

Over the dilapidated housetops of our Banian 
neighbours the abandoned citadel of Cirrir rose 
on our right, standing up against the white sky 

[39] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

like a stage setting of Bakst fixed for a drama, 
awaiting the reluctant actors. 

I took a cautious glance at my wilting com- 
rade. There was a wild, unsettled light in his 
eye as he reached for a cool drink. 

"Where," he demanded feverishly, "where can 
I see one of those mermaids you were talking 
about?" 

The hot days that followed were a blur of 
business, broken only by the departure of my 
companion for Mombasa, whence he was bound 
for Uganda, where cool hills rear their misty 
heights, and green, juicy grass grows underfoot. 

There was httle opportunity to look about me. 
I fell into a downy nest of work, for the mills 
of New England and the New South spin 
swiftly, and the Somahs and Abyssinians must 
be clad. Gradually, however, as I found oppor- 
tunity to peer over the edge of my desk, I ob- 
served with delight that the cook was a Goanese 
Catholic — ^Diego Felice Fernandez — ^the house- 
boys were Indian Mohammedans, the punkah- 
wallah was an Arab follower of the Prophet and 
read his Koran with diligence the while he fanned 
the stagnant air, the dhobies were Somah maids, 
and from the godown below came the giggles and 

[40] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

chatter of two-score Hindu women with rings 
on their fingers and bells on their toes, sifting 
and sorting choicest longberry coffee from 
Mocha and Harrar, destined for the percolators 
of Manhattan and the Bronx. 

After a while I stretched my arms and looked 
about. . . . 

For almost a year I hved upon that rock, hat- 
ing it as heartily as any one may. In all that 
time I did not see a blade of grass, or taste of 
fresh fruit, or smell the scent of a flower; nor 
did I travel more than six miles in any direc- 
tion; for I was aHen, and the British lines were 
particular, as their Turkish foes were ever on 
the qui vive. Even the clubs offered scant at- 
traction: the Gymldiana, where sunburnt colo- 
nels danced about bare-armed and bare-legged, 
vigorously intent on making small boys chase 
tennis-balls; the International, torpidly blinking 
across its empty courts, contrasting with the 
sprightliness that vanished when the German 
merchants were sent to waste their festive talents 
on the internment camp at Ahmednagar; and 
the famous Union Club at Steamer Point, which 
sits with its feet in the bay, wet outside, wet in- 
side, the only oasis in Aden, where, nevertheless, 

[41] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

you pay extra for water with your meals, and 
make or break a reputation according to your 
skill as a mixer of cool and titillating potions. 

Here late guests not long ago, seated upon 
the gravel terrace, watched the flash of cannon 
and the bursting shells that flared over the salt- 
heaps of Khor Marksar. Here one evening I 
noticed several generals, the secretary of an em- 
pire, and a bevy of colonels mingling unmarked 
by the wilting crowd, whose interest was entirely 
absorbed by the few ladies available for dancing 
who still remained within the fortress. Here I 
have messed at table with fourteen officers of 
the army and navy, the only civihan among them, 
listening to a conversation that was entirely of 
bombs and ships and hydroplanes, of motorcars 
and guns. There was hfe here, but it was 
strangely one-sided, and, for all its turmoil and 
change of characters, it ran in ruts. 

A stranger from a passing transport walks 
slowly on to the cement terrace, looking casually 
about for famihar faces. Suddenly his expres- 
sion alters. "I'm damned," he says, approach- 
ing a seated group. "Fancy meeting you herel" 

The seated friend does not even rise, but he 
shakes hands and indicates a chair, "Pull up," 

[42] 



SOUTH OF SUE2 

he says placidly. "Boy! What'll you have to 
drink? Chota peg ^ hoy. . . . Where you going? 
Mesopot?" He introduces the others, and the 
conversation drifts drearily along. 

At a table where a number of us have been 
messing for many days together, the youngest 
officer, apropos of something or other, says to 
the man on his right, "I was on your eleven, 
wasn't I?" 

"Why, yes," says the other, "I think so." 

"Fancy that! I thought I recognised you. 
But I know your younger brother better." 

"Yes. James. He was killed about six 
months ago. What are you going to have?" 

"A gin-and-bitters, if you don't mind." 

There has been a booming all morning. This 
is not nice if it happens on mail day, because you 
can't keep your mind on market prices when you 
know there is action somewhere. At the club 
in the evening there are some officers, unusually 
dusty, hot, and surly. Some are playing bridge; 
others are at the bar. 

"What was the show to-day?" says some one. 
The answer is grunts. "What happened?" 

"Oh, strafe the beggars." 

"What happened?" 

[43] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

"Usual thing: march out; shoot some guns; 
march back. Beastly hot, too. They got Blake- 
ley. Bit of shrapnel." 

And then you notice for the first time that 
Blakeley is not at his bridge-table querulously 
interrogating his partner. 

One night I met a major who is well known 
among the Lambs in New York. He had just 
come out of Somaliland, where he had been trot- 
ting after the Mad Mullah on camelback. He 
laughed when I pointed out the absence of chol- 
eric colonels. 

"You ought to meet Ashton," he said. "It 
was pretty generally understood that he didn't 
want any one shooting around his compound. 
Well, a young sub who didn't know anything 
about the rule shot a bird near the colonel's gate. 
The colonel saw him at the mess later, and gave 
him a most awful call. 

" 'But where was the harm?' said the sub. 
'Why r 

"'Why?' shouted the colonel. 'Why? Be- 
cause I, Colonel Bernadotte Fitz- William Ash- 
ton, Commanding His Majesty's Ninety- 
eleventh Camel Strawcrumpers, damn well say 

[44] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

you shouldn't! That's why, you impertinent 
young scoundrel, you !' " 

But the drab curtain falls. There are no chol- 
eric colonels in Aden. They are too busy with 
Turks to bother about birds. And I was gen- 
erally too busy with cotton to bother about colo- 
nels. Let me tell you, there's not much that's 
drab about business here. 

Squatted on the floor of dingy shops with a 
press of natives about, pufling sweet-scented 
Banian cigarettes, I discussed weave and weight 
with naked yellow men from Cutch, and brought 
into being contracts as lusty as war babies. 
Climbing over heaps of hides and plunging down 
dark alleyways, I came to low-ceilinged godowns, 
where, seated on piles of tusks, I argued with 
grizzled Abyssinian hunters and brokers on the 
relative prices of ivory in New York and Can- 
ton. In stifling godowns I watched the assem- 
bling of bales of skins of goat, sheep, gazelle, and 
leopard, and hides of lion, zebra, and bullock, 
destined for the tanneries of Boston and Phila- 
delphia. I visited pearl-merchants who poured 
forth on velvet mats to tempt my hungry eye 
quivering globules that were like the tears of 

[45] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

laughter of a joyous mermaid. This reminds 
me that the last wail of my old comrade, bound 
for the black districts of Central Africa, had been 
for a sight of a mermaid sporting in the living 
waters of the gulf. 

"You*re kidding me," he wailed as the bimi- 
boat leaped toward his steamer. "It's impos- 
sible. There's no such thing." 

*'0h, but, sir, there is," protested an obsequious 
Parsi passenger in the bumboat. "I have my- 
self seen one, sir, stuffed, in the shop of Mouna." 

My comrade shuddered. 

"The natives eat them," I added. 

"You always have to contribute your little bit 
of disgusting comment," he said savagely. 

"Oh, well," I remarked serenely, "it won't be 
the last time you'll come in contact with flesh- 
eaters." 

He answered this with a glare of stern com- 
passion. Anyway, he had not seen a mermaid. 
And I had. . . . 

In the evening, when most Europeans fore- 
gathered in the clubs for tea and tennis or bridge 
and billiards, adding bit by bit to the crust of the 
conventions of their race, I sometimes found my- 
self alone in the bazaars, amazed at the variety 

[46] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

of human life, overwhelmed at the thought of 
the quantity and diversity of unheard-of ideas 
that must seep through these strangely stirring 
minds, and thanking God in my heart that I 
have ears to hear and eyes to see, though much 
that I observed was like phantoms passing 
through the fog that surrounds us all. Vassan- 
jee takes a flea gravely from his wrist and with 
gentleness deposits it upon the ground, for who 
knows what soul is chained within? Sammbu 
walks wide of the village well with glassy eyes, 
for he has seen a devil sitting on the stone. Who 
knows? Perhaps he has; I see germs in every 
puddle. And poor Yusuf Sangoi cannot sleep; 
he still grieves for the lost days of his mad, merry 
youth when he was lord high executioner for his 
holiness the Mad Mullah. Is he any worse than 
the two prim ladies four hundred yards away 
who put their heads together over an unconscious 
snub administered by the general's wife, and 
damn the reputation of poor, giddy little Mrs. 
Gay lor? 

I cannot say. My eye is only for colour — 
the futurist daubs of the bazaar, a pattern of 
races that cannot be copied: Banians of Cutch, 
Parsis of Bombay, Hindus of Bengal, Somalis 

[47] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

in togas whose patterns were looted from the 
last camp of Augustus, proud Abyssinians with 
stubble beards, Nubian slaves degenerated into 
free sweepers, Jews with dangling curls and 
watery eyes, Arabs with the grace and pride of 
Spaniards, Persians from the Gulf, flat-nosed 
Swahilis from Mombasa, Armenians, Greeks, 
and their brother Levantines. Dirty and clean, 
beggar and sultan, they shoulder their way 
through life together, glad to be alive and un- 
ashamed of their emotions — wailing their grief 
in pubHc, or laughing aloud so that all the world 
may see their happiness. 

"It is fated," says the merchant to the pleading 
beggar. "God will provide for you." 

"Verily," says the man in rags, "we belong to 
God, and unto Him we shall all return. May 
He make no loneliness in thy case." And the 
merchant pays the dole. 

''Bismillahr says he, and dusts his finger-tips. 

Down the dark alleys I made my way, snif- 
fing the spicy odours as a hillman sniffs the per- 
fume of the deodars, and even the stenches were 
not unpleasant to my nostrils. Vague arches 
reared their mystic curves above me; there were 
whispers in the dark and the alluring tinkle of 

[48] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

bracelets ; uncertain chords of music drifted over 
the housetops; flames flickered in the cavernous 
gloom of the eating-houses; I stumbled over 
milch goats, and blundered among charpoys. 
In the broader thoroughfares I climbed around 
recumbent camels munching their fodder from 
the hands of tender guardians who, beyond the 
fetters of the law, would have delighted to bury 
their knives in a Kafir. 

The road is a current of varied life, moving 
forward and backward, eddying around the 
gaming-tables and the stalls of venders of dates 
and melons, or down past the clioki and gharry 
stand, where a few dilapidated American mo- 
tor-cars have taken their place as inconspicu- 
ously as the old clipper ships that used to ride 
in the lee of Cirrir in the good days when 
the Marblehead skippers came swaggering up 
Aidroos Road, and the consul flew his flag in 
Crater. 

I ran into an old friend. 

"Hello," said Mohammed. "Come. Let us 
not talk here. We will have coffee." 

So I went with him to drink coffee at his 
divan; and I was glad, for there I found two 
sultans, a grand vizier, and &ve merchants who 

[49] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

had come from Muscat in dhows with cargo of 
dates and rugs and honey. 

Squatting on Shirazi rugs with our backs to 
the walls, or bolstered up with fine cushions, we 
sipped Arabian coffee, flavoured with cardamom 
and cinnamon, and gravely passed the hookah- 
tubes from hand to hand as we gossipped on 
many topics. The merchants said little. Their 
skin was still dry and wrinkled from the expo- 
sure of their long voyage, and they wore 
their fine brocades and hair-plaited turbans with 
ill comfort. The sultans were ingenuously ab- 
sorbed in a game of parchesi ; so the grand vizier, 
beaming at me over a pair of steel-rinuned spec- 
tacles, suggested chess. 

He was a genial old fellow with a stubby, red 
beard and smooth-shaven upper Hp. He had 
the head of a Barcelona boatman, save for his 
tightly wound turban and the silk scarf about 
his neck; but he played a swift, devastating 
game, and in less than fifteen minutes, shifting a 
rook, he cried out: 

^' Sheik el mat!" . . . And my king was gone. 

As I moved away from the bright glare of the 
piazza into the darkness once more, I heard a 
lattice rattle lightly above me, a murmm* of 

[50] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

voices, and the sound of suppressed laughter ; and 
in my heart there suddenly leaped a joyous and 
indefinable emotion, for I was young, and the 
stars twinkled merrily in the dark canopy of the 
sky, the night was soft about me, and a woman's 
laughter was music in my heart. 

I arrived at the Mess late for dinner. 

An Irish captain had dropped in for pot luck 
with my messmate. He had come with news, 
for Kut had fallen and Townshend was taken. 
The captain's brother was with Townshend, and 
my messmate had been up the gulf for Gve years, 
so they fell naturally into argument. 

"Here," said the captain, planting a musty 
mango for a marker, "is Kut — and the river to 
Basra runs here — and the pipe-line comes down 
from the oil fields somewhere about there " 

He marked the lines across my table-cloth 
with a knife, and took up his positions with 
crusts of bread. My messmate accepted battle; 
and the argument continued until the little Arab 
boy fell asleep over the punkah rope, and the 
butler came to make his nocturnal salaams, while 
a tom-tom throbbed near some distant mosque. 
Afar off I could hear the dull hammer of cannon. 

In the morning a grinning, bare-legged Arab 
[51] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

boy comes staggering pigeon-toed into the office, 
bearing a huge tray of dates, candied fruits, and 
bottles of rose cordiah This is duly handed over 
to Diego Felice Fernandez, and I am presented 
with a complimentary note from Menahem and 
an invitation to call. It is a business call, but 
there is a matter of friendliness, for the old Jew 
and myself understand each other. He is the 
greatest merchant between Cairo and Bombay, 
the landlord of much in Port Said and more in 
Aden. His head is sound, his manner is gentle, 
and he judges people shrewdly. With his red 
tarbush pushed back from his forehead, his 
round face beaming pinkly above his white whis- 
kers, his eyes twinkling, he has the air of a benev- 
olent patriarch. He likes Americans for their 
fraternal spirit, and he told me a little story that 
makes me happy. 

One Sabbath he embarked on a boat at Jaffa, 
having purchased and paid for a first-class ticket. 
For some inexplicable reason the captain ob- 
jected to him and his companion travelling first 
class, and insisted that he pay a bonus or leave 
the ship. The Jew could not pass money on the 
holy day. In the midst of the altercation an 
American came by. He stopped, hstened. 

[52] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

"Young man," he said, "don't worry for a mo- 
ment. I'll pay the difference, and you can fix 
it up with me at Port Said." 

Menahem has forgotten his name! But who 
was President of the United States thirty-odd 
years ago? He was the man. 

It's curious that the kindly act of a President, 
done before I was born, should be of material 
assistance in the sale of goods turned out by the 
most modern of American mills. The ripple 
started at Jaffa still beats heavily on the Arabian 
shores. 

Down the street is another friend, Mohammed 
Bazar a. Not only is he a rich man; he is also 
a sheikh. In his divan you would think him a 
poor merchant, were it not for his proud bearing 
and languid grace. He is thin, wears a long, 
thin linen robe ; his face is long and saturnine and 
topped with a little white skull-cap, or sometimes 
a simple yellow turban, while upon his feet are 
well-trod sandals. Upon his chin is a meagre 
tuft. He is continually reciting his beads, while 
his mind swiftly turns over the bullish tendencies 
of the American market, and the inroads of In- 
dian and Japanese cotton. We have done each 
other favours, so we are at ease. As a special 

[53] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

treat he has brewed for me a cup of China tea. 

"It is genuine China tea, the finest," he as- 
sures me, who have drunk it forty times a day in 
the dusty yamens of northern Shansi, in the 
moist, shmy alleyways of Shengfeng. He of- 
fers it to me in a tumbler, like a miniature mug 
of beer. It is thick and syrupy, and he stirs in 
more sugar, using an indelible-ink pencil in lieu 
of a spoon, so that the amber fluid becomes tinged 
with an exquisite purple that looks like a Persian 
cordial and tastes like the devil. 

I leave him to call on Bhagwandass Dewjee, 
whom I find squatting on a table in a murky 
shop, picking his teeth with an air of abstraction. 
He is considerably more than half naked, and 
gives me the irreverent impression of a Buddha 
who has been on a bat. He bestows on me a 
toothless grin, a moist hand, and a sickeningly 
sweet Banian cigarette which I smoke with satis- 
faction. Then we talk of Manchester mills, and 
the shortage of dyes; for Bhagwandass, despite 
the caste mark on his forehead, is a heavy buyer, 
and knows his business. 

Thus the film rolls before me. When I tire of 
the bazaar, I switch to the clubs. AVhen I 
weary of the clubs, I turn and make my apolo- 

[54] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

gies for social delinquencies over fragrant tea 
poured by fair hands. When I feel the desire 
for a mental stimulant, I lounge into one of the 
hotels at Steamer Point or the outer office of 
Dinshaw Cowasjee's, where skippers from the 
shivering and simmering seas curse with delight 
at meeting, and grunt with disgust when the 
Parsi clerk hands them their papers and they 
know the bumboat is thumping at the landing- 
stage impatient to be off. Here I listen to true 
tales that would make me a liar to repeat — ^tales 
of sea-serpents, of submarines, of skies that fall 
and seas that writhe, of fight with fists and mar- 
linspikes and flames. 

Again, I step through a portiere, following 
the majestic figure of Mohammed Omer, his 
heavy, black-and-white silk turban with its tas- 
sels of pearls marking the way through a gloomy 
passage. Then suddenly all thought of Aden 
falls away; the rasping roar of dusty winds is 
hushed; my own dull spirit seems to take on a 
consciousness of other days, and in my mind runs 
the poetry of Omar, in my ears sound the songs 
of Hafiz. A blaze of light, a jumble of vivid 
colour against an opulent background of rugs 
and cushions from Sanaa, Serabend, and Mousal, 

[55] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

the pulsing music of high-pitched voices accom- 
panied on lute and flute and drum, a soft haze 
of smoke, and the throaty purring of two hun- 
dred narghilehs ! Far at the end of the pavilion 
a youth in gorgeous raiment sits cross-legged on 
a dais with a scimitar before him. He is half 
stupefied by the kart leaves which he chews. Be- 
low him there are figures swaying in the rhythm 
of an Egyptian dance. We advance in a haze; 
a servant bawls out the announcement of our 
coming, and our foreheads and hands are 
smeared with attar of roses. The guests begin 
to file forward, flinging handfuls of coins 
into a great brazen tray which rings with 
the clash of the silver; and the young man 
descends from his dais and dances before them. 
To me it is a dream. To Mohammed it is 
a grim reality. The boy is embarking upon 
his first matrimonial adventure; and Moham- 
med joins with him to celebrate his sixth 
wedding. 

"Why not?" says Mohammed, a smile flashing 
across his dark, handsome face. "May we not 
be happy?" 

My youthful French companion, crippled in 
the wars, leans heavily on my shoulder, but rolls 

[56] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

his large eyes fervently toward the ceiling, and 
murmurs : 

''Alia ul Allahr 

Mohammed smiles deprecatingly. 

"Have you seen her?" pleads Max. 

"Nay," says Mohammed. "It is not our cus- 
tom. I do not see her until the night of the 
nuptials." 

"Trustful man," says Max, and begins to hum, 
''Je sais que vous etes jolie."' 

This is all very well. There is life and action 
and colour in all this, but it is very deceiving. 
Expose it to three hundred and sixty-five days 
of sunlight, under whose glare all colours fade. 
Drown the music in the roar of hot, dust-laden 
winds that sweep over the lips of Crater and 
smother the town in dust and dirt. Cripple all 
action with the flame of fever, the twinge of rheu- 
matism, the ache of neuralgia; starve it with the 
vain desire for fresh vegetables and an empty 
craving for the taste of fresh fruit. Drop your- 
self in the middle of it for a year or two ! 

Medical men agree that the effect is not nice. 
The mind actually deteriorates, the body becomes 
torpid. A period of long indifference is sud- 
denly followed by bursts of inane fury. Trifles 

[57] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

are the beginning of tempests. A sneeze starts 
a whirlwind. The memory becomes erratic; im- 
portant matters are overlooked and not worried 
about, while little things cause endless irritation. 
One becomes oppressed with the monotony of 
hfe, like a caged animal, indifferent to the pass- 
ing throng, snarling over bones, and sleeping. 

At night I sleep on the roof, and grow on in- 
timate terms with the constellations hanging 
above my head. The moon and the stars seem 
to set the still atmosphere aquiver with their 
silver radiance. 

There are other watchers from the rooftops. 
From the shadows about me come the murmur 
of voices, whispers, laughter, the fitful cry of a 
baby, the grumble of a disgruntled man. But 
after midnight the town slumbers. One night 
an extraordinary thing occurred. For over a 
week we had suffered a constant temperature 
higher than blood heat. The air was saturated 
with salt moisture, and we sweltered and writhed 
with the tortures of prickly heat. 

There was little sleeping on the rooftops — 
just a vague, restless stirring and the subdued 
whimpering of unhappy children. A cyclone 
was raging in the Arabian sea, which only added 

[58] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

to the weight of our atmosphere. After three 
sleepless nights I managed to doze off sitting in 
an upright chair. At three in the morning I 
was awakened by an unbelievable sound — ^thun- 
der rumbling in the hills. At first I thought 
the Turks were attempting a nocturnal surprise. 
Then I felt a cold thrill run up my spine. Cool 
rain was beating in through the porticos! A 
babble of astonished and happy voices broke over 
the town. There was laughter; there were 
shouts; and in the white glare of the lightning 
you could see people running about dragging 
their charpoys under shelter, or with their faces 
turned up mutely to the drenching darkness 
above. 

Rain is by no means unknown. The distant 
sky is often sad, though it sheds no tears. But 
when the rain does begin to beat on the burning 
ridge, it usually comes in a cloudburst. Cata- 
racts leap two or three hundred feet from the 
crests of the denuded mountains and come rush- 
ing down the gorges in torrents. The eight-mil- 
lion-gallon tank — ^the work of Romans or Per- 
sians (no one seems to know, though their work 
endures!) — fills up in half an hour, and the water 
goes rushing through the heart of the town, down 

[59] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

a broad nullah and into the sea. The streets 
run like rivers, and the thick, white adobe roofs 
collapse like snow beneath the downpour. Half 
an hour after the rain has ceased, the main roads 
are dry. 

In the "winter" months, when the temperature 
drops to eighty, the evenings seem cool and the 
hills become inviting places to climb. They rise 
almost two thousand feet in the air. Upon the 
crests a perfect gale may be blowing, or a breath- 
less stillness hang. After the sun sinks its 
head upon a bed of purple and gold, slipping 
under the horizon as though beneath a coverlet, 
darkness pours like a fluid into the cup of Crater. 
The humming of the human hive mounts upward 
through the stilling air ; it is a distinct hum, only 
occasionally punctuated by the soft low of cat- 
tle, the throaty roar of a camel, the distant bleat 
of a motor-horn. 

The mountains are lonely, deserted. Few 
care to climb in them, for they are dangerous. 
They are not the granite slopes of home. The 
rocks are rotten and crumbly; they slip from 
underfoot; if you reach out to seize a handhold, 
it crumbles beneath your grasp. Pebbles go 
skittering away, and the roar of an avalanche 

[60} 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

follows. Deep chasms gape suddenly at your 
feet. You find yourself without warning on 
the downward slope of a crest that overhangs 
the broiling sea. The very ugliness and danger 
are the chief attractions. There is a bit in par- 
ticular that fascinates me. 

Looking from this bleak pinnacle — ^the ughest 
bit of mountain in the world, I think, with its 
masses of rotting rock, its iron crust curling in 
ragged edges, gypsum oozing from the crevices, 
vast stains of stinking guano, chalky bones 
bleaching on the ledges, and the unclean hawks 
wheeling in clouds over all, uttering their deso- 
late cries — it seems to me to symbolise the end 
of all things. 

Southward, I know, lie Socotra and Guarda- 
fui, the verge of the ancient universe when the 
stars were watchlights and the earth stood on 
pins. Over to the westward, below the melting 
horizon, stretches the Benadir coast, whence 
came the African wizard to seize Aladdin's lamp, 
and where even to-day a black veil of mystery 
hangs over the strange land and the fierce activi- 
ties of the Mad Mullah. But eastward, where 
the broad beach sweeps away in an immeasur- 
able arc, vanishing in the misty distance in the 

[61] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

direction of Oman, and northward behind the" 
dim purple momitains where Nasrani never 
dares to tread, an ancient world, yet new to me, 
and overflowing with romance and adventm-e, 
Hes tantalisingly near, but closed tighter than 
the passes beyond Darjeeling. 

If you are caught on the mountains after dark, 
you snuggle close in some cranny, thank God for 
a pipe and stick there until the sun leaps out of 
the Indian Ocean. But when the moon is high 
and clear, the mountains are safe. 

At two o'clock one morning I found myself 
with a Swiss companion on the highest peak. 
A wisp of cloud hung about us. We cm-led up 
in the rocks and slept. An hour later my com- 
panion awoke with* a cry, clutching me by the 
arm. From a placid* dream he had awakened 
to stare down a slope tumbling two thousand feet 
into the sea, while behind him black cliffs fell 
sheer away into unplumbed darkness. 

The air was cool. We descended slowly. 
We came through the hollow-echoing tanks that 
may have once given back the sound of Roman 
picks or Persian sledges, and on into the bazaar. 

Silence hangs heavy about us. The waning 
moon seems to touch the crest of the mountain- 

[62] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

ous ridge with a silver streak. A fisherman 
passes with his nets flung over a withered, brown 
shoulder. 

Suddenly over the sleeping town a loud call 
echoes from minaret to minaret. The bazaar 
sighs and stirs about me; my heart leaps in my 
throat, for the muezzin is calling the world to 
prayer. 

The sun chmbs swiftly out of the east; the 
bazaar begins to murmur and clatter; the 
little world of men resumes its fretful uproar. 
Against the bleak mountains the call to prayer 
still echoes : 

There is no god hut God! 

But Meghjee Permanund, the Hindu, finger- 
ing his bolt of cloth, murmurs to himself : 

"The risk is in the mouth, but the profit is be- 
yond the head." 



1 63 J 




'^\ h' 




w 



TJ 



O 



?d 





Cross and Scimitar in Abyssinia 
I. The Prince Dons a Turban 

ABOUT a year after my arrival at Aden 
there occurred in Abyssinia an event 
shrouded yet rich in the mystic gloom of 
mediaevaHsm; and, at the same time, behind the 
curtain of its isolation, stirring with all the 
clashing tumult of contemporary times. I saw 
much of it — as through a shimmering mist — 
but, so far as I know, no words have as yet been 
written in Enghsh to describe it, save such per- 
haps as have taken their way to the dusty 
archives of Whitehall. 

What I did not myself hear and see, I 
learned from chance-flung phrases over the 
shoulders of warriors on cantering ponies; over 
glasses of tedj in thatched toMiuls; amid the 
clatter and confusion of native troop. trains; at 
dainty luncheons amid incongruous settings from 
the lips of silent men of great experience; and 

[65] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

particularly over a map sketched on a scrap of 
paper by a Germano-Ethiopean, while at the 
other end of the room there was uproar and 
crashing of chairs as some Greeks and renegade 
Italians struggled furiously over a matter of no 
consequence to us. 

If I have slipped in particulars, it is due to 
mixed tongues, incoherent phrases, and the dis- 
tractions of personal events — ^which I pass over 
lightly. . . . 

My good fortune, then, found me in Djibouti, 
the port of French Somahland, stranded, wait- 
ing for a boat that never came, just at the time 
when Abyssinian troubles had swelled to the 
bursting point. For at least a year all North- 
east Africa had been feeling the restiveness of 
too long a period of peace. Sporadic outbreaks 
in Somaliland and in the Soudan gave sufficient 
indication that the hot Hd was quivering. Dis- 
trict Commissioners of conquered provinces, thin- 
lipped, went coolly on with their work, and sent 
in reports that were forgotten in the tumult of 
the times. 

Suddenly Somahs raided along the Juba River, 
and white settlers and officials were wiped out; 
a report came that the Mad Mullah was again 

[66] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

making hell along the Benadir coast; Great 
Britain unexpectedly found itself with a formi- 
dable war on its hands at Darfur in the Soudan; 
the desert DankaHs began to cut at the metre- 
gauge French railway that extends from Dji- 
bouti, on the Gulf of Aden, almost to Addis- 
Abeba, capital of Abyssinia, about five hundred 
miles westward; and then came the news that 
threatened to set Africa on fire from Mombasa 
to Suez. 

Lidj Yassou, ruler of Abyssinia, had openly 
apostasised from the ancient Christian Coptic 
religion, the faith of his people, and had declared 
himself of the family of Imam, through whose 
veins ran the blood of the Prophet. Abandon- 
ing his capital, he had gone to Harrar, the 
ancient seat of the government, which lies close 
to British Somahland, and there openly gave his 
sympathy to the fanatic Somalis. . . . 

While I was seated at an iron table in front 
of the Cafe de la Paix, sipping grenadine, listen- 
ing abstractedly to the babel of voices about me, 
and gazing helplessly across the blazing Place 
Menelik, a friend, an energetic and resourceful 
Frenchman, came breezily up to me and placed 
a paper upon the table. 

[67] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

"Sign it," he said; "and to-morrow we shall 
go. 

"Where?" I asked. 

"To Abyssinia. Where else? The Railway 
Company is going to send a train through to 
bring these evacuees back to their posts." He 
scornfully indicated the gibbering crowd of Ar- 
menians, Arabs, Abyssinians, and stray SomaHs 
who surrounded us. "You sign the paper to 
acquit the Company of responsibility. You 
understand?" 

So the next day at dawn we were off. 

The train was a conglomerate string of wagons 
separated into four classes, arid jammed with 
men, women, and children of many races from 
Asia, Europe, and Africa. Unmindful of the 
sweltering heat, they stared with bulging eyes 
across the quivering deserts and along the rugged 
slopes of the barren mountains where nothing 
seemed to hve save heavy-maned baboons who 
fled behind rocks and cursed the train as it 
panted by. As each unharmed station hove in 
view, the evacuees cheered shrilly, and made 
sorties en masse with wine bottles, canteens, tin 
basins, and chatties to catch the overflow from 
the watering tank. The windows of the cars 

[68] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

bristled with rifles, and every man hung a heavy 
revolver upon his hip and twirled his moustache 
with nervous fierceness as the danger points ap- 
proached. The Greeks, seeking favours, fawned 
upon the Abyssinians, embracing them and pat- 
ting their hands affectionately. Babies whined 
fretfully; women shouted shrilly to their men; 
men and boys tumbled excitedly over each other 
in frantic efforts to regain their seats when the 
engine whistled; for to be left behind was a 
terrifying thought. In my compartment, my 
three French companions, after half an hour's 
friendly and animated conversation, offered each 
other cigars, drew books from their packs, and 
gave themselves up to reading. One read the 
Revue des Deuoo Mondes; another, "Diseases of 
the Eye"; and the third, Galsworthy's "Man of 
Property." 

At Dire-Daoua, in the province of Harrar, 
the human cargo was discharged in a jumbled, 
vociferous stream which overcame the frenzied 
Abyssinian Customs guards and flowed into the 
town. 

That night while at dinner a message came 
to my companion offering us the hospitality of 
a native troop train if we wished to continue on 

[69] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

to Addis- Abeba in the metropolitan province of 
Shoa. We gladly accepted, and stumbling out 
into the darkness, found the Chief Magistrate 
down a dark lane. At the base of a baobab 
tree, in the flickering light of a candle, he glanced 
at our passports, with his armed escort peering 
over our shoulders, and willingly gave us per- 
mission to proceed. 

Thirty-six hours later, in company with the 
political director of the railway, we rode on 
mule-back past the royal Guehi in Addis- Abeba, 
the first Europeans to enter since communication 
with the outer world had been cut, 

I pass over the details of the upward journey 
— the recent battles along the line; cattle wan- 
tonly slaughtered by raiders, and the bleaching 
bones of men picked clean by hyenas and vul- 
tures; pillaged posts in lonely desert tracts; the 
routing of Somalis, and the burning of their 
village. 'Not is it pertinent to describe ful- 
somely the glorious aspect of the coimtry — ^the 
broad deserts of shimmering gold; the purple- 
hued mountains; the rolling uplands; the deep 
valleys with torrents of clear water; the lush 
forests swarming with game; the vast herds of 
cattle that strayed across the tracks ; the blossoms 

[70] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

of scarlet tamarind, the Nile-green euphoebes 
dusted with gold, the umbrella-like mimosas; 
and, above all, the numerous birds of brilliant 
hues that flashed like living gems in the green 
depths of the forests, or flickered hke broken 
rays of sunhght across the open plains. . . . 

At the very time when we were penetrating 
further into this glorious country, discovering an 
added charm with every passing mile, its deposed 
sovereign, far behind us, was crossing the tracks 
and seeking the safety of an exile in the scorch- 
ing desert wilderness of Danakil. . . . 

On the continent of Africa there remains to- 
day only this one nation, without exception, that 
dares call itself independent. 

The ancient empire of "Ethiope," more gener- 
ally known as Abyssinia, occupies the lofty 
plateau which feeds the waters of the Abai River 
and forms the eastern watershed of the White 
Nile south of Khartoum on one side, and, on the 
other, drains into the desert land along the lower 
Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. With a terri- 
tory of over three hundred thousand square miles, 
and a population of almost eight milhon natives, 
this nation has watched the rise and fall of many 
peoples; has stood firm when the floods of 

[71] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

fanatic Islam poured around it, lapping at its 
buttresses; and has thrown back with compara- 
tive ease the invasion of European powers. The 
Mahdi, who hurled himself unhesitatingly upon 
the might of Britain gathered at Omdurman, 
could make no inroad upon Abyssinian territory ; 
the Arabs, who overran warlike Nubia, were 
powerless to do more than make occasional 
forays across the northern border to snatch slaves 
for the Yemen ; and the Somalis, respected by all 
other of their enemies, are looked upon with 
careless scorn by the Christian warriors of the 
west and north. 

It is strictly a feudal nation, with all the char- 
acteristics of mediaeval Europe, yet it can call 
into the field a regular army twice as great in 
numbers as the standing army of the United 
States. Furthermore, every freeman is well 
acquainted with arms and irregular warfare, 
and becomes a warrior at the call. Bullets and 
empty cartridge shells pass as currency in the 
market place. I have not seen an unarmed 
Abyssinian; yet in the days of Menelik a 
traveller blundering through the country could 
go from north to south, east to west, by the lone- 
liest paths and to the remotest hamlets, as secure 

[72] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

as a nocturnal wanderer along the Victoria Em- 
bankment. 

When finally Menelik's days were numbered, 
however, and the old "Lion of Judah" felt his 
firm tissues relaxing and his keen senses stupe- 
fying with the general decay, he assembled the 
great rases about him, and pledged them by 
most solemn oath to support as his successor 
to the throne of Ethiopea, Lidj Yassou, his 
comely grandson, son of his daughter, Waizaro 
Shoa Rogga, and Ras Mikael, King of the Wallo 
country. And they, still wholly dominated by the 
will of the inflexible old chieftain, yielded to his 
wishes. It is certain, though, that they looked 
upon the heir to the throne with secret disfavour, 
as he was obviously a weak and vacillating youth, 
possessed of that unfortunate comehness seldom 
associated with stamina, and rendering its pos- 
sessor an unconscious victim of every flattering 
suggestion. 

Menehk was a great monarch, and his deeds 
have glorified his name, so that even in this day 
to swear "by Menelik" is an oath more binding 
than the most sacred vow. Under his rule the 
nation rose to high dignity, was feared by its 
neighbours, and earned the respect of the Great 

[73] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Powers. But when he disappeared behind the 
mysterious veil that was drawn before the last 
stage of his waning life, and Lidj Yassou by 
easy gradients found himself upon the throne of 
Ethiopea, the country relapsed once more into 
its deep -rutted medisevahsm. The fine roads 
of the capital became rock-studded troughs and 
quagmires; justice became fickle; the stern laws 
of Menelik were merely memories; indifference 
succeeded the vigilance of old; little remained of 
the simple splendour of the past save the un- 
alterable beauty of the billowing mountains and 
the gentle vales. 

To all degrees of this general sinking back 
of their nation the rases were not unaware. 
They watched with bitterness and dismay the 
wanton indifference of Menelik's successor, al- 
ready a prey to sycophants, and scornful of the 
advice of his elders. Bound by the oath of their 
late monarch, they feared to act; and, moreover, 
the occasional flashes of brilliancy displayed by 
the Prince revived their flagging hopes. How- 
ever, two elements finally began to identify them- 
selves so closely with the Prince's destiny as to 
render his ultimate fate certain. These were his 
increasing sensuality and his overpowering 

[74] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

superstition. He yielded irresistibly to the 
dusky charms of his countrywomen; and then, 
with whetted passion, looked for conquests 
among the fairer Arabs and Egyptians who had 
passed before his smouldering gaze. Here, how- 
ever, his religion and the traditions of his people 
raised formidable barriers that could not be 
passed unless overthrown. 

Like many before him who lacked the strength 
to guide their own destinies, Lidj Yassou began 
then to consult the famous sorceresses of the 
land. Chief of these was a wrinkled daughter 
of Islam who daily received tribute of earth and 
water from far countries, and whose potent spells 
could bind the very Nile. By her art many an 
upstanding warrior had found himself at night- 
fall changed into an hysterical hyena, and it was 
common belief that if she would release the spell, 
more than a few croaking crows would speak 
once more the soft syllables of Ethiopea. Lidj 
Yassou wore an amulet charmed by her. None 
knows what weird suggestions she whispered in 
his ear, but the result was becoming manifest. 
One simple evidence of the ambition that grew 
within him was a silly passion for photographs. 
In his capital there was a foreigner from the 

[75] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Levant who monopolised the making of portraits 
have paid with the honom* of his daughter. His 
collection numbered hundreds of portraits in a 
of the Prince — for which patronage he is said to 
great variety of attitudes and in many costumes ; 
but the most significant of all was one showing 
the Prince wearing a turban. 

This simple portrait, the plainest in all the 
collection, vividly illumines the Prince's conduct. 
By becoming a convert to Islam he beheved that 
in one act he could become ruler over half the 
world, easily impose his might upon the rest, 
and at the same time secure to himself all the 
sensual delights that are permitted the lax 
Mussulmans of the present day. 

"No one knows exactly what intrigues were 
now initiated, but the first alarming evidence of 
his intended apostasy was a flag which he pre- 
sented to the Turkish Minister. This flag bore 
the pregnant phrase : 

^^La Ilahi Ilallah, Mohammed ressoul Allah." 

Immediately the Ministers of the Allied Na- 
tions, which were then deeply involved in war, 
were aroused. The British Minister was par- 
ticularly concerned, as arms were being sent 
from Abyssinian arsenals to the Somahs across 

[76] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

the border, and the Soudan and British East 
Africa were beginning to feel the consequent 
unrest. Pourparlers commenced, in the midst 
of which Lidj Yassou, with cynical indifference, 
departed from the capital, having decided noth- 
ing, leaving the Government behind him in a 
state of suspension. The Ministers vigorously 
protested, but as there was no one to receive the 
protest, their vigour was vain. 

Now that action succeeded to dreams and 
rumours, many startling reports came to the ears 
of the Ministers. 

It was learned that the Prince had visited 
remote Djidjiga, where he treated the native 
Somahs as brothers and compatriots. They 
made fantasia before him, and he presented them 
with a banner upon which was an emblem with 
a scimitar arranged in such a fashion as to indi- 
cate that it hung over the necks of all Christians. 
Without hesitation the Somalis thereupon ap- 
peared in their public places, making fantasia, 
and waving banners bearing this sinister emblem. 
The Prince even went further and converted a 
Christian Church, the property of the state, into 
a mosque. 

Later he appeared at Dire-Daoua, in the 
[77] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

famous coffee province of Harrar, then under 
the governorship of young Ras Taffari, who was 
destined to become the Regent. Has Taffari 
had particular reason for complaint; for a short 
time before, when forty-five Abyssinians had 
had their throats cut by Somalis of the Ogaden, 
and the offenders had been duly captured and 
sent in chains to Addis- Abeba for judgment, 
Lidj Yassou not only pardoned them, but 
treated them with distinction. 

Upon his appearance in Dire-Daoua, the local 
prelates, therefore, disturbed by the rumours 
that were then rampant, and particularly con- 
cerned by the growing power of the Mussulmans 
within the city, — a mosque having recently been 
erected there, — appeared before him and urged 
that some provision be made for a new Christian 
Church. With a flash of wit that must have 
struck the prelates aghast, the grinning Prince 
said: 

"There is the new Mosque. What better 
place to guard the Presence?" 

Proceeding then to the walled city of Harrar, 
he gave himself over openly to the friends of 
Islam. 

Donning a turban, he went in company with 
[78] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

his Mussulman friends to a mosque. Leaving 
his sandals outside, he entered as a true fol- 
lower of the Prophet, going through the ablu- 
tions and prostrations with the punetiHousness 
of a convert. He then gave alms freely at the 
doorway, as is the custom, and proceeded im- 
mediately to a hostel where there were women 
to receive him, and champagne flowed. In this 
city he espoused the daughter and the niece of 
Abba Djifar, the daughter of the Emir Abdulali, 
the daughter of Nagadras Mohamed Abou 
Bekir, the daughter of Chief Adal, and many 
concubines besides. 

Harrar now became a gathering place for 
Somalis and Dankalis. The former, haughty 
and scornful, with snowy togas flung over their 
shoulders, stalked through the streets, many 
abreast, yielding place to no one, and handling 
their spears with careless grace. The lean 
Dankalis, glorying in the flesh-pots, squatted 
about the hanging carcasses of freshly killed 
sheep, cutting off dripping pieces with their 
keen knives, eating the raw flesh. The Abys- 
sinians, meanwhile, ignored by their Prince, who 
was now almost constantly surrounded by Mus- 
sulmans, smothered their fury in silence. 

[79] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

One act that particularly incensed the Harrari 
was over a point of law. It is the custom in 
Abyssinia to maintain the cadi system. The 
cadi sits in open court in the market place, and 
before him offenders are brought, and cases 
tried; and very often the bystanders are called 
upon to make the decision. Well, one day 
the Mussulmans accused their own cadi at 
Harrar: 

"You drink beer and hydromal contrary to 
the prescriptions of the Koran." Lidj Yassou 
thereupon ordered him to be publicly judged 
by the Christians. 

"Think what it would mean," the Abyssinians 
protested among themselves, "if he ordered 
Mussulmans to judge us in a parallel case!" 
Strangely enough, their sense of justice was 
further deeply moved at the thought of Chris- 
tians being made judges of laws of which they 
knew nothing. 

Though astonishing, it is an evidence of Lidj 
Yassou's fatuous egotism that he took it for 
granted no serious opposition would be made 
against his actions by the Abyssinians, par- 
ticularly by natives of Shoa, the metropohtan 

[80] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

province, land of the ruling race, and seat of 
the capital, Addis- Abeba. 

As a matter of fact, in Addis- Abeba a swift 
and furious opposition did develop. 

Both prelates and rases ^ overcome with in- 
dignation, met secretly and concerted plans 
against the apostate Prince; while at the same 
time the lesser chiefs and clergy were stirring 
the freemen of Shoa to a patriotic and re- 
ligious fervour of revolt. In a remarkable peti- 
tion to Zeoditou, daughter of Menelik and aunt 
of the Prince, they urged her, in the following 
terms, to consider their grievances: 

"Deliver us from our oath of fidelity, because 
we will not submit ourselves to Islam, and we 
do not wish to give up our country to the 
stranger because of the malice of this Lidj 
Yassou, who has conducted his royalty so badly. 
We will not permit a Negus who has renounced 
his faith to govern us ; and, finally, we will never 
consent to change our religion." 

Fed by expressions such as these, and fully 
aware of the tragic and imminent danger in 
which their country was placed, the nobles and 
warriors of Shoa besought Zeoditou to take the 

[81] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

throne. On the twenty-seventh of September, 
1916, therefore, a coup d'etat was accordingly 
effected in Addis-Abeba without any bloodshed 
other than that caused by the bullets that flew 
from the explosive rejoicings of the natives. 
Waited upon by the nobles and a small army 
of soldiers with many batteries of field guns, 
Zeoditou ascended the throne. Lidj Yassou 
was declared deprived of his royal rights and 
prerogatives, and a solemn curse was pro- 
nounced upon him. Ras Taffari was made 
Regent and heir to the throne. 

Nothing could be richer in the picturesque 
and pious medi^evalism of the occasion than the 
concluding words of the gentle Empress, called 
from her retirement to preserve the faith among 
her people. 

"Henceforth all my glory rests in you," she 
said, "because after Menelik have I not said my 
supreme adieu to all which is of this world? . , , 
I pray the Lord to bless your noble resolutions 
and to give His grace to all of you, the puissant 
and valiant of Ethiopea, and at last to lead you 
to good end." 

More to the point, however, was the message 
of his "Beatitude the Abouna Matheos, Servitor 

[82] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

of Christ, son of the Evangelist St. Marc, and 
Archbishop Primate of the Royalty and people 
of Ethiopea." 

Speaking with full authority of the Alex- 
andrian Synod of the Coptic Church, and backed 
by the one hundred thousand members of the 
clergy within Abyssinia, the message had the 
full force of, and was strangely similar to, an 
ancient Papal Bull of Excommunication. He 
solemnly prayed that the offending Prince and 
any one who denied the authority, ex cathedra, 
of the Primate, should "incur the indignation of 
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy 
Ghost; that he incur anathema in the name of 
the twelve Apostles and of the 318 Fathers of 
the Council of Nice ; and that the malediction of 
Arius and the reprobation of Judas fall upon 
him . . . and I, Matheos, by my humble parole, 
I excommunicate him. ..." 

At this solemn moment, the unfortunate 
Prince, heedless of his impending doom, was 
probably playing with one of the brainless toys 
who had tripped him from his throne. . . . 

When these messages were received in Dire- 
Daoua and Harrar, a tumult immediately burst 
forth. I do not know what action the Prince 

[83] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

then took, but almost immediately his weaknesses 
betrayed him. Spurred on by the daring and 
wily Mussulmans who supported him, he made a 
few weak, vain efforts to rise triumphant upon 
the flood that had' set against him. He looked 
for support from the Somahs. In the mean- 
time, however, the Abyssinians in Harrar city, 
having provoked the Somalis by gibes and in- 
sults to such a point of fury that a desert tribes- 
man finally struck one of them, fell upon them, 
and with rifles, spears, and scimitars massacred 
almost all the hated tribesmen that were within 
the city. At the height of the slaughter, the 
British Consul, appalled at the wanton blood- 
shed, went alone to Baltcha, the acting Governor 
of the city, and urged that he make some efforts 
to bring it to a stop. 

Baltcha, most impressive of men, though a 
eunuch, gave a casual order, and the slaughter 
immediately ceased. 

Nobody knew what turn the trouble would 
now take, or what support the Prince could 
count upon. 

His father, JRas Mikael, King of the Wallo 
country, was quiescent, and it was believed he 
would ignore his son. To the south and east 

[84] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

there were raids and skirmishes in lonely places. 
One ambitious attempt was made by the Prince's 
followers to get possession of the little railway 
between Dire-Daoua and Addis- Abeba; but a 
small force of Shoan troops arrived at the spot 
a few hours before them, and having picked their 
position, with a couple of mountain guns and 
mitrailleuses they scattered and demoralised 
them, killing several hundred. The Prince, 
likewise, with a large force of SomaHs, advanced 
upon Harrar; but the Abyssinians went forth 
and met them, and smashed them; and the 
Prince, believing that all was now lost, no longer 
trusting in the shining destiny that had been 
burnished for him, fled with a few companions 
into the fastnesses of the unconquered and un- 
explored land of Danakil. . . . 

This, apparently, was the end of the Prince. 

So easily had he been toppled from his throne, 
and so .firmly established did the new Empress 
appear to be fixed as the successor .of her father, 
Menelik the Great, that the Shoans were rest- 
less and uneasy at their swift success. They 
looked about them undecidedly. Something — 
they seemed to feel — was. wanting. What ele- 
ment had they not taken into consideration? . . . 

[85] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Having come safely through some of these 
episodes, my companion and myself believed, 
too, that the trouble was over in the capital. He 
was eager to seize a commercial opportunity 
that presented itself; and I, indirectly, was 
similarly concerned. At the last moment, how- 
ever, we found that our impetuousness had 
overcarried us, and that we had landed with 
both feet in what looked like a promising trap. 

And at the same time the Shoans, seizing their 
weapons anew, prepared for genuine trouble. 



[86] 






I/. Revenge of Ahou "Boll-Them-Up" 

'N Addis- Abeba itself there were rapid and 
startKng developments. 

We suddenly learned that the raiboad had 
been cut behind us; all means of telegraphic 
communication with the outet world had been 
severed; and a large army was advancing upon 
Addis-Abeba from the north, threatening to 
destroy the city and anniliilate its occupants, in- 
cluding the foreign Ministers, who, with a few 
exceptions, were the only Europeans within the 
city. We spent our time riding, exploring, 
learning the lay of the land, catching up every 
rumour that flew, and preparing for whatever 
fate might befall us. 

It came to me, as to many others, as a great 
surprise that an army should be sweeping down 
victoriously from the north when the weak 
Prince had been blotted out of consideration 
far to the south-eastward. We had believed 
that his father, Ras Mikael, ashamed of the con- 
duct of his son, had watched his dethronement 

[87] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

with apathetic sorrow. Certainly when the 
news first came to the Negus, King of the Wallo 
country, that his wanton son had been hurled 
from the high place, and was now a wanderer 
in the deserts, he did nothing nor said a single 
word to betray his thought. This silence was 
taken by the emotional Shoans to indicate .that 
the dark, stern old warrior stood strong for the 
faith above all things, and was ready to pledge 
his fealty to Zeoditou. 

The succession had been fully established; 
and it was felt that the throne of the daughter 
of Menelik was secure. Broken, the Somalis 
had been scattered among the hills of their in- 
hospitable country; the Dankahs dispersed 
across their burning sands ; and the .fallen Prince, 
with a diseased mind, was a wanderer in the 
company of the disappointed and furious Mus- 
sulman, Abou Bekir, father of one of his con- 
cubines. In the conglomeration of villages 
which form the capital of Shoa, all was serene. 
Baltcha, the calm, pious, but ferocious eunuch, 
held the place under his thumb with the same 
imperturbability with which, in his good time, he 
had stayed the massacre of Somalis in Harrar. 
All that was necessary to consolidate the empire 

[88] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

and to complete the harmony of its ancient 
people was the reassuring presence of the Negus 
Mikael. Eyes were turned unconsciously to the 
north; ears were alert for news from Dessie; 
every rider who came by Entoto was lU'ged to 
tell when the Negus would come. And finally 
riders appeared in haste on blown ponies at 
Ankober, and thence the wires hummed with the 
intelligence that the Negus was on his way at 
last, mounted on his war-horse, "RoU-them-up" 
. . . and forty thousand warriors with him. 

Unadvised by friends or counsellors, the 
Negus had yielded to his pride. Tortured with 
agony at the shame that had come upon his 
family, he forgot the treachery to his God; he 
scornfully ignored the sufferings of his country; 
he thought only of his son, his comely Yassou, 
blood of his blood, bone of his bone, an outcast, 
despised and rejected by the people of Shoa. 
Mindful of the scene where Menehk on his 
deathbed had bound the rases by most solemn 
oath to support the youth as their future em- 
peror, he cursed their treachery^ and starting up 
with his hand clutching the hilt of his scimitar, 
swore that honour would be avenged. 

To the north, the east, and the west, couriers 
[89] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

on the swift horses of Wallo carried the word of 
the Negus to his vassals. Over the rolling table- 
land of Wallo, into the dark, unexplored forests 
by the shores of Tsana, across the deserts of 
Tigre* went the call. The war drums throbbed 
and thundered in remotest villages ; the tom-toms 
beat by every nomad's camp ; there was a rattling 
of lances, a grinding of new edges on old 
scimitars, shrill war-songs that seemed to set the 
desert stars to quivering; and then came the 
rases of the North, leading their warriors by 
tens and hundreds and thousands into inhospit- 
able Dessie, lapped in the rugged mountains, 
where the dark, unsmiling Negus awaited them. 

Mussulman and Christian in unnatural frater- 
nity, they then pom'ed through the country of 
the Menzes, devastating that unfortunate land. 
Wherever life was encountered, death and deso- 
lation were left behind. Each village was sur- 
rounded, and the ruthless slaughterers slashed 
everything that moved. Resistance was beaten 
down as the tide beats through sedges. Omi- 
nous as the flight of vultures, the host, swollen 
in numbers, inflamed with success, swept down 
on Addis- Abeba. 

They advanced as barbarians advance, irregu- 
[90] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

larly, on horse, on mule, and on foot. Most 
warriors had with them for attendants a squire, 
a shield bearer, and a couple of slaves. In the 
advance it was hard to distinguish master from 
slave, for all were draped in robes of dirty 
cotton cloth, with home-spun blankets on their 
shoulders, and crude raw-hide sandals laced 
across their feet. Of weapons they had every 
variety, from curved Arabian daggers to field- 
pieces captm-ed from the Italians at Adua. 
Bandoleers were slung over their togas; slim 
scimitars curved behind them; and the horsemen 
bore long lances which they could fling with 
deadly precision. They followed no roads, nor 
observed strict rules of marching, each ras lead- 
ing his force by whatever way suited him best, 
whether along a ridge of hills or following the 
meanderings of a convenient valley. All that 
was necessary was to keep in touch with the 
ISTegus, and to maintain as well as possible their 
roughly assigned positions relative to the centre. 
At night the Negus retired to his unpreten- 
tious tent of green canvas, and to this head- 
quarters came the great war chiefs or their 
couriers to take orders or submit reports. In 
the day time the Negus led the van of the army, 

[91] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

with Dedjatch Tadela in advance. At the end of 
the left wing marched Mas Omar, follower of the 
prophet, advancing with blood in his eye, and 
'^ Allah ilallahi' upon his scornful lips. Closer 
in on the same flank came Has Gebri-Gzaibyar, 
who brought with him mules and mountain 
guns; while ranging far on the right were the 
warriors of Has Gebri-Christos. And this last 
was a curious circumstance. 

At one time Ras Gebri-Christos had been son- 
in-law of the Negus himself, who bestowed upon 
him rich lands and large favours. But Gebri- 
Christos, wearying of his princess bride after 
several years, in the easy manner of the Abys- 
sinians in such matters sent her back to her 
father's thatched palace. Infuriated, the Negus 
stripped his vassal of all he had bestowed upon 
him. Beyond this he did nothing, for Gebri- 
Christos was within his right, and moreover he 
was a warrior of distinction. So nothing worse 
befell him then to suffer the confiscation of the 
chattels his wife had brought, and to know that 
he lived under the hatred of the stern Negus. 
Now this account may be false, for in this crisis 
he was chosen by the Negus to command the 
right flank and to carry it alone, which he did, 

[92] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

beating forward like the black wing of a pounc- 
ing raven; but in view of later events I am in- 
clined to believe it. Anyway, so ran the gossip 
of the market place. 

Mikael's rage was cold and calculating. 
Though advancing with the rapidity of Asiatic 
horse, his army, nevertheless, was in firm control, 
and he left no necessary diplomatic precaution 
neglected. Chief of these was to hold the con- 
fidence of his Christian followers, and to wean 
from the Shoans the support of the Church, he 
himself having become a Christian only at the 
time of his marriage to Menelik's younger 
daughter. To accomplish his end, he selected an 
ecclesiastic of Coptic descent who was head of 
the Church in the kingdom of Wallo, and him 
he named Ahouna Petrus, head of the Christian 
Church in all Ethiopea, and subject only to the 
synod at Alexandria. Confident, then, of the 
spiritual satisfaction of his followers, — ^the Mus- 
sulmans embracing death in the name of Allah, 
and the Christians at their side confident of sal- 
vation through martyrdom, — ^he advanced fear- 
lessly. 

At Ankober, Ras Omar, the Mussulman, met 
the first of the Shoan forces, six thousand strong, 

[93] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

who had pushed forward under the leadership 
of the brave Lul Seged in an effort to check 
the invasion. B,as Omar's fanatics overwhehned 
them; Lul Seged found his eternal couch upon 
the field of battle ; and the few who remained of 
his force were sent flying southward towards 
Addis- Abeba to pant out news of the disaster 
within the lines of the gathering Shoans. 

Following swiftly, but losing time in idle skir- 
mishes here and there, — for each man provided 
his own commissariat and was obliged to forage 
by the way, — ^the army of the Negus at last 
came to Silti, a small village two days' march 
northeast of Addis- Abeba, and here halted; for 
the Shoans had formed a camp at Koromasch, 
a short distance beyond, and were apparently 
ready for battle. 

The Negus Mikael was anxious to begin the 
conflict at once; but he was forced to hesitate. 
His followers had done hard marching and 
fierce fighting. Moreover their impetuosity was 
greater than their endurance, and there was 
danger of overthrowing themselves in too hasty 
an attempt to annihilate the enemy. Accord- 
ingly the old green tent was pitched on an 
eminence, a council of rases was called, and the 

[94] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

soldiers bivouacked for night. Mikael knew 
that he was opposed by Fitaorari Apte Guir- 
gious, Minister of War and Governor of the 
Equatorial Provinces, and he did not make the 
mistake of underestimating the com'age, shrewd- 
ness, and determination of his old f ellow-in-arms. 
It is true that the Fitaorari was second in com- 
mand to Ras Taff ari ; but at this time the young 
Regent's name bore more weight than his 
scimitar, and he wilhngly accepted the counsel 
of his older chieftain. 

The Negus, therefore, took time to consider; 
but before his rases had yet expressed their 
ideas, — ^while, indeed, they were still exchanging 
the fulsome compliments and many little cour- 
tesies that are the custom of chivalrous and war- 
like people, and were pledging each other in 
tedjj, the golden wine of their native hills, made 
of honey and herbs, — a hubbub arose at the en- 
trance to the tent, and into the presence of 
the council under escort of a guard of spears- 
men came a messenger from Fitaorari Apte 
Guirgious. 

In the name of Menelik, the leader of the 
Shoans offered peace. He pointed out that the 
war was internecine; that nothing could be 

[95] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

gained by it but further strife; and that so long 
as it continued they opened their country to 
foreign aggression. If the Negus were willing, 
he suggested that he submit his terms of peace 
to be considered by the throne. 

This offer had a triple effect on the Negus. 
Coming from the Minister of War, it astonished 
him; secondly, it flattered him for the awe he 
had so quickly inspired; and lastly, it made him 
hesitate. If it were possible for him to obtain 
his object without a pitched battle, so much the 
better for him; for his army would then be in- 
tact and greatly strengthened by the surrender- 
ing Shoans. Nevertheless, first dismissing his 
council, he sent back word that he would only 
consider the unconditional surrender of the 
Shoans. This, he felt, would be conclusive. 
Great was his astonishment in the morning, 
therefore, when a messenger returned bearing a 
weak reply from the Fitaoran. 

"It is beyond my power," the Fitaoran 
pleaded, "to surrender my forces without re- 
sistance, or at least until I secure the consent of 
the Empress. It will be impossible to obtam 
this consent until a swift com-ier can bear your 

[96] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

terms to Addis-Abeba, and the proposition is 
there discussed." 

The Negus immediately came to the con- 
clusion that the Fitaorari, lacking in strong rases 
to spur him on, had lost heart. He felt now that 
the Shoans feared him and were anxious to avoid 
battle. Moreover there was excellent reason to 
believe that the Empress, dragged unwillingly 
from her retirement, might consent to the Negus 
himself, her brother-in-law, being elevated to 
the throne. So he agreed that word should be 
sent to Addis-Abeba; and he immediately con^ 
soHdated his forces in the same relative positions 
that they held in marching, placing the field 
pieces on either side of his own encampment, 
and extending his front. 

Now the Fitaorari Apte Guirgious's offer of 
peace was merely a ruse to gain time; for the 
Shoan forces were slow in assembling. 

When there is no necessity for haste, Shoa 
alone can mobilise a vast number of armed and 
courageous warriors whose equal is not to be 
found elsewhere in Africa. But these men were 
scattered at the very moment when they were 
most urgently required, for the danger was im- 

[97] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

minent. The word went through the land, 
therefore, for the rases to assemble in all haste 
with what men were at hand, leaving word for 
the tarriers to follow after. And so the chief- 
tains rode into the capital with their small 
bands, and out again northward. Haile Guir- 
gious. Governor of Damot and God jam, who 
ordinarily could assemble a large army, came at 
the call with only a thousand warriors, and with 
this meagre crew took his post on the right flank. 
Other rases entered the field with only a few 
hundred men to support them. By means of the 
railway several thousands were brought up from 
Dire-Daoua. And thus by small, scattered 
bands the ranks of the Shoans were filled, until 
at last a loosely organised army was got to- 
gether of about eighty thousand men, with many 
mitrailleuses and perhaps fifteen or twenty gims. 

The Fitaorari grouped these men imder the 
greater rases, and placed them hastily in posi- 
tion as follows: 

On the right flank was Haile Guirgious; on 
the left flank was Ligaba Bay ana; and the centre 
was held with Ras Demissie in advance, Fitaorari 
Apte Guirgious in the van, and Bas Taff ari, the 
youthful regent, in support. 

[98] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

The country was billowy tableland, with gentle 
vales through which clear, cold streamlets flowed, 
while on the slopes were occasional copses of 
juniper and wild fig trees. A few peasants' 
tokhuls oozed smoke through the thick thatched 
roofs, and sheep and cattle browsed in the long 
grass. It was generally level, but forward and 
immediately to the left of Dedjatch Tadela's 
camp on the side of the invading forces was a hill 
which hfted itself above the surrounding mead- 
ows and dominated both camps. Ignoring 
modern ideas of tactics until forced upon them 
by necessity, both sides disregarded the impor- 
tance of this eminence. . . . 

After waiting three days for word from 
Addis- Abeba, the Negus at last lost patience 
and began to doubt the wisdom of his delay. 
This doubting of his own judgment enraged him. 
Action always conquers diplomacy; and so he 
sent word that he would wait no longer. ... 

On this afternoon, or the day before, I had 
gone riding with a party from the British Lega- 
tion — ^the British Minister and his wife, the Con- 
sul General and his wife, and the military 
attache — to explore an ancient ruin on a high 
elevation northeastward of the capital. It was 

[99] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

a glorious ride up rocky slopes and across rolling 
meadows alight with golden mustard and the 
scarlet blossoms of wild sweet peas. 

The ruin was the remains of an ancient Chris- 
tian church carved out of the living rock, pos- 
sibly by the hands of some of those ancient 
mystics who, in days before the Crusades, went 
out into the desert places to spend their lives in 
pious works and meditation. They believed 
their work would endure forever, and truly it 
was as old as the hills; yet, though we marked 
clearly the transept, the nave, and the chancel, 
the roof had fallen in places, the foots of large 
trees tore at the crumbling rocks, and a rich 
luxuriance of creepers hastened its decay. 
Standing on this ruin, on one side below us in 
a glorious vista swept the vale of Shoa, radiant 
in the light of the sinking sun. But the Major 
and the young Consul General urged me to 
look behind, and there in the distance they 
pointed out the slope near Silti, where the 
Negus, like a hawk, was poised waiting for the 
right moment to throw himself upon the Shoans ; 
while down in the intervening valleys we saw 
small encampments, and tardy horsemen travel- 
ling northward to lift a lance for the cause. It 

[100] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

struck me then what a strange tableau was here. 

Christians we were, of the modern age; yet 
we stood upon the ruins of a Christian church 
built before the dark ages and looked down upon 
Christian warriors going to war against the 
forces of Islam, calling on St. Gabriel and St. 
George, exactly as did their co-religionists of 
mediaeval times — ^three great ages linked to- 
gether. And to one side, with red and white 
pennons fluttering from the tips of their lances, 
stood two turbaned Sikhs with the reins of the 
horses upon their arms, imperliurbable as the 
East that brought them forth, saying nothing, 
merely looking on. 

We rode back before the shadows fell. . . . 

At about three o'clock in the morning the in- 
vaders began to stir. Hot is the blood that 
lusts for battle two hours before the dawn. Yet 
before the naked sun rose from its eastern couch 
of sand, large bodies of warriors were moving 
through the dew-drenched meadows of the up- 
lands. At first a silence hung over the cold, 
misty country, broken only by the gasping 
laughter of an hyena, and then by the dull 
rumble of the war-drums whose deep notes 
pulsed through the night like throbbing blood in 

[101] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

the ear. The heart seemed to beat unconsciously 
in rhythm with the sound, feehng the same suf- 
focating thrill that comes at the first echo of 
distant cannon. It called for action. 

Driven on by the sound, the white companies 
drifted through the darkness hke bands of 
ghosts, over the rolling meadows, along the 
gentle vales, with an occasional clank of arms, a 
whispered command sternly given, the startling 
snort of a pony, or the blind rush of some wild 
creature surprised in its covert. Then to the 
eastward, where Has Omar was closing in on the 
Shoan flank, there came the snap of rifles, the 
swish and hammer of hoofs as horses charged in 
the night, and the battle was on. 

Negus Mikael's plan was simple and de- 
termined. Both flanks of the Shoans were to 
be turned in upon the centre, and at the same 
time a frontal attack was to be directed against 
the main camps. On the wings it required 
several hours' marching to bring the warriors in 
contact, but at the centre less than half a mile 
separated the contending forces, so that all 
seemed to come in contact at once. 

The guns went into action immediately, spit- 
ting and striking blindly in the darkness; while 

[102] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

the mitrailleuses sputtered as uselessly from 
their uncertain posts. This was a vain show, 
and a form of warfare hateful to the warriors. 
With shouts and cries they rushed forward, seek- 
ing to come to grips with their opponents. 

Ras Omar's impetuous followers, striking the 
scattered forces of the Betodded Haile Guirgious 
with a sweeping rush, seemed to carry all be- 
fore him, forcing the old chieftain back upon his 
centre, fighting desperately to prevent a com- 
plete turning movement. 

While Ras Omar thus seemed to be carrying 
all before him, Dedjatch Tadela, followed by all 
the forces of the Negus Mikael, advanced in a 
straight frontal attack, and threw himself with 
great ferocity upon the very camp of Ras 
Demissie, in the Shoan centre, and by the sheer 
shock of the encounter overthrew the Shoans 
and sent them reeling back upon the camp of 
Fitaorari Apte Guirgious. Continuing on with 
unabated impetuosity, he actually penetrated the 
Fitaorari^s encampment and came in contact 
with the last reserve under Ras Taffari. The 
fighting in this advance was terrific, as Dedjatch 
Tadela in his advance must have had under him 
about thirty thousand men, with whom he hoped 

[103] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

to annihilate over fifty thousand Shoans, de- 
pending for success not on any principle of 
tactics but upon the sheer ferocity of his men. 
His attack was a whirlwind of steel and flying 
lead; but he stirred up a second whirlwind to 
contend with him. 

The Shoans are not brawlers and swash- 
bucklers. They are gentle in manner, soft- 
spoken, affectionate, and rather inchned towards 
peaceful settlements, unless they become excited. 
The sight of blood, the sound of clashing arms, 
the shock of an insult, will arouse them to swift, 
insensate fury. When blood or honour cries for 
vengeance, they shriek, they howl, they leap in 
the air, they froth at the mouth, and rush 
furiously upon their adversaries determined to 
tear them to pieces. Imagine, then, a hundred 
and thirty thousand of such men, aroused to the 
point of desperation, flinging themselves upon 
each other with lances, scimitars, daggers. . . . 
The Fitaorari Apte Guirgious himself, com- 
mander-in-chief, unable to remain inactive with 
the clash of battle about him, though old and 
lame, leaped from his horse, flung his rifle away, 
and rushed into the torrent of the enemy with 
drawn sword. Ras Demissie, entangled in a 

[104] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

struggling, panting mass of warriors, was 
knocked from his saddle by a blow from a stick 
in the hands of a squire; twice was he captured 
and recaptured. Horsemen charged among 
men on foot or clashed furiously with one an- 
other; foot soldiers were involved in struggling 
mobs, where rifles exploded like crackers, lances 
swished through the air, scimitars thudded 
against raw-hide shields, half -naked men rolled 
over and over in the thick, sweet-smelling 
meadow grass, stabbing at each other, choking 
for breath, mad to kill. 

While Mas Omar was turning the Shoans' 
right, and Dedjatch Tadela smashing their cen- 
tre. Has Gebri-Gzaibyer, well equipped with mi- 
trailleuses, hit upon the idea of securing the hill, 
emplacing himself there, and dominating the 
field. Simultaneously Ras Demissie, of the 
Shoan force, despite the confusion in which he 
found himself, having already twice narrowly 
escaped destruction, was struck by the same pos- 
sibility, and immediately detached men to take 
the hill. It was taken and retaken three times 
before the sun rose, and the dead about it were 
piled in heaps. 

You must know that the sun rises early, so 
[105] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

that darkness quickly gave way before the golden 
flood that poured from the east. The pure, 
cool dew which was distilling from the fragrant 
mountain air when the sun went down, now at 
its rising was tinged with blood. In the 
light of day the struggle became fiercer. Each 
side knew that defeat meant annihilation. 
Lungs burned, muscles ached; but neither 
wounds nor fatigue could force them to stop. 
Horses, flecked in bloody froth, heaved them- 
selves up the gentle slopes, whistling through 
their parched throats, and lunged down again 
into the nearest turmoil. Men fought in isolated 
groups. And all the while the drums roared 
and throbbed. , . . 

On the eminence where his camp was pitched, 
the Negus Mikael, seated on his fretting horse, 
"Roll-Them-Up," with a tiny reserve of six or 
seven hundred men about him, gazed out across 
the field towards Koromasch. The furrow on 
his brow was smoothing out ; his large, intelligent 
eyes flashed; his mobile lips parted so that his 
teeth glistened in his beard. He saw himself al- 
ready upon the throne of Menelik. The battle 
was his. 

Ras Omar had successfully turned the enemy's 
[106] 



SOUTH OF Suez; 

right flank in upon its centre; and the centre 
was being thrust determinedly back in confusion 
before the fierce attack of Dedjatch Tadela. 
The decision, then, rested with the swords of Has 
Gebri-Christos, whose object it was to turn the 
left flank guarded by Ligaba Bay ana. . . , And 
here there is confusion. 

Has Gebri-Christos advanced as rapidly as 
Ras Omar on the left wing and forced action 
upon Ligaba Bayana, who opposed him with 
eight thousand men; but whether there was a 
struggle in which the attacker was completely 
repulsed, or he deliberately yielded to Ligaba 
Bayana, joined forces with him, and turned back 
upon his own leader, is not clear. In either 
event, however, the result would have been the 
same; for while this point of the battle was still 
in uncertainty, there suddenly appeared from the 
west, cutting in behind Ras Gebri-Christos, six 
thousand mounted men under Ras Kassa. 

Suddenly, then, while his warriors were actu- 
ally sweeping everything before them, and vic- 
tory seemed certain, the attention of the Negus 
Mikael was turned westward. 

From this quarter a host of horsemen was 
rushing upon him. 

[107] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Uncertain, curious, not yet doubting that 
Gebri-Christos had been anything but victorious, 
the Negus and his bodyguard moved slowly for- 
ward to meet this advance. They strained their 
eyes to identify the leader. Some one recog- 
nised Ras Gebri-Christos. Immediately the 
Negus believed that his Heutenant had been de- 
feated, and was hard pressed. 

With a cry to his followers, he charged 
straight to the support of the overwhelmed 
Christos, his few hundred warriors pressing 
valiantly behind him, shouting encouragement 
and loosening their arms. They had not gone 
far, however, when a word was shrieked in the 
uproar that suddenly stilled the shouts and 
brought the flying horses to a plunging halt. 

"Treachery ! Treachery !" 

The Negus was stunned. He looked about 
him as though he had suddenly been surrounded 
by assassins. Some of his men were galloping 
furiously away to the northward. One of his 
rases pressed close to him and urged him to fly. 

"The north is open. You are safe. There is 
no horse in Shoa that can pass the dust of 'Roll- 
Them-Up.' " Others cried out, "We are lost. 
Everything is lost. Fly! Fly!" The horses 

[108] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

plunged and shied. The rases pressed in upon 
their king, exhorting him to save himself. A 
few slipped away and fled towards Ankober. 

Gradually it dawned upon the Negus that all 
in truth was lost, and that before him, advanc- 
ing rapidly at the head of hostile horsemen, was 
the man his guard called traitor, his errant son- 
in-law. A shadow settled upon his countenance, 
his brows drew down ominously, his eyes gleamed 
with a cruel concentration, and he fixed his gaze 
on Christos. At that moment he must have 
tasted the dregs of bitterness. He had fought 
to redeem the honour of a son whom a nation had 
scorned, and now at the moment of victory he 
was about to be crushed by the man who had 
scorned his daughter. 

Suddenly, without shifting his gaze, he urged 
"Roll-Them-Up" forward. The good horse 
leaped like a startled kudu, and rushed straight 
upon the advancing horsemen. The Negus fired 
three shots at Christos, wounding him. Then he 
was seized and overthrown; yet heedless of any 
one else, in a cold frenzy, the king still struggled 
desperately to get near enough to Christos to 
plunge a knife into him. . . . 

This ended the battle. 

[109] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Dedjatch Tadela and Ras Gebri-Gzaibyer, 
having attacked without supports, were hope- 
lessly suiTounded. Only Has Omar, the Mussul- 
man, left the field in safety, his untiring warriors 
streaking away to the northward, slashing back 
at the heavy pursuit of the weary horsemen from 
the west. 

The struggle had lasted until almost noon; 
and the actual dead upon the field certainly 
numbered over fourteen thousand. 

The thunder of the war-drums died away. 
The tumult was stilled. Over the field went 
warriors, plucking trophies from the slain; and 
after them the camp followers and the neigh- 
bouring peasants to strip the dead and pillage 
among the wounded. The victory was com- 
plete. . . . 

Abeady in every copse the ravens croaked, 
and high in the clear blue heavens black dots 
showed the vultures were coming. 

Peace settled over the country. 



[110] 




Ill, Triumph of Zeoditou, Daughter of 
Menelik 

A HAZE seems to spread itself over all my 
actions and the impressions I formed of 
the swiftly moving events of that month, a haze 
similar to that which lends mystic enchantment 
to a medieeval romance. Exact details are dis- 
solved in a general romantic impression. I re- 
call in a peculiar jmnble the perfume of flowers, 
a cool strong wind sighing through cypress-like 
eucalyptus trees, knightly warriors riding away 
at dawn down dim rutted lanes with squires and 
hostlers at the heels of their horses, and women 
at the smoky doors of thatched huts crying lov- 
ing farewells and calling down on them the bless- 
ings of God and the intercession of the Virgin. 
I remember the sound of galloping horses at 
night, a leper's bell tinkhng in the market place, 
a dark ford where robbers lay in ambush, a ride 
against time in the dusk of evening on a foam- 
ing black horse with a bearded cavalryman at 
my shoulder with pennoned lance at rest, a 

[111] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

gibbet at the cross-roads, and the rasping of 
malefactors' bodies swung by the moaning 
breezes of night against the bark of road-side 
trees. But above all there is a vivid memory of 
a brilliant field of honour, where conquering 
warriors careered on richly caparisoned horses 
before the silken tent of their empress, and en- 
chained prisoners made obeisance to the valiant 
Might that had overthrown them. . . . 

Lounging one evening within the walls of my 
host's compound, carrying on a desultory con- 
versation with a Greek hunter in a language 
that was mongrel, we waited with unconscious 
expectancy for some new event. The soft 
silence of eventide was about us. Ravens 
croaked malignantly under the garden wall, and 
the ruminating camels grumbled in reply. All 
at once we heard a rifle shot. Instantly a fusil- 
lade broke out from the direction of the royal 
Guebi. The sound ran like fire over the wooded 
hills of the capital; rifles exploded at our very 
gate ; cannon hammered at the sky. In another 
moment we were in the midst of bedlam. 

An Arab ran to the gate and barred it. The 
occupants of the compound stared at each other 
dazed, anxious. All armed themselves with 

[112] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

rifles, pikes, and swords. Had the Negus come? 
If so, we were lost. 

The Greek tried to explain to me; but our 
languages were too mixed for sudden speech. 
So then he swung up on his little horse. Order- 
ing the gate to be opened, he turned to me, 
grinned, said "Chin-chin," and rode away. I 
knew then that good news had come from 
Silti, and as he turned away in the direction 
of the Guebi, I made off on foot to the market 
place. 

The brown naked expanse of the market place 
was filled with flying figures. Reckless riders 
galloped at breakneck pace over rough ground, 
leaping the furrows and ditches as though they 
were nothing but ruts, waving their rifles about 
their heads, and firing at random. Unmounted 
soldiers squatted comfortably on their haunches, 
and pumped their rifles at an empty sky. 
Women thrust their heads out of doors and 
cried in tremulous voices for news. Panting 
clusters of squires and attendants chased like 
mad after the flying masters they were sup- 
posed to escort. Curs came leaping joyously 
out of every alleyway, yelping without restraint, 
and then went racing silently back with lumps of 

[113] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

lead whipping the dust about them; for such a 
thing as a blank cartridge is unknown in 
Ethiopea. Squat, bow-legged slaves, grinning 
delightedly one moment, looking ghastly serious 
the next, blundered about on tardy errands, or 
took hasty shelter in the nearest huts. I passed 
a woman who was wailing over her son who had 
just been hit; and indeed it is a wonder more of 
us were not down, for the pellets were slapping 
freely in the dust about us. Many, of course, 
were wounded; but the piper was not over-paid. 

The last echo of the cannon rolled against the 
hills ; and then in rapid diminuendo the rifle shots 
died away, until silence again fell over the city; 
and darkness seemed to sink softly over the 
happy villages. Though I strained my ears 
there was no sound to arouse a second thought, 
save the tinkling bell of the Faceless One at the 
cross-roads. 

Surprised at the sudden cessation of the shoot- 
ing, which is as much an expression of an Abys- 
sinian's joy as is the song of the Swahili, I 
wandered further. All human life seemed to 
have been sucked into the thatched dwellings, 
where alone sounds of subdued revehy could be 
heard. Then I found there were guards sta- 

[m] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

tioned along all the main roads, dusty, weary 
guards, but grim; and it might have been a 
lonely night for me had I not met the Greek 
hunter returning; and so we managed to get 
through. 

He told me, now that we could frame our 
words at leisure, that Dedjatch Baltcha, the 
eunuch, had taken the capital in hand. This, I 
knew, meant order; for Baltcha is one of the 
sternest figures I have ever encountered. He is 
so strangely unhke the general conception of a 
eunuch that I should certainly believe him to be 
false, — like Li, the wily paramour of the Em- 
press of China, — but no breath of scandal rests 
against his fame. Austere, cold, passionless in 
his heart's desires, nevertheless he moves with 
swift and deadly precision, adhering strictly to 
the course of right as he understands right. Be- 
lieving in God with the intimacy of a fanatic, 
and fearing Him above all things, he has no 
timidity for all the airy bluster of puny man. 

Lidj Yassou, the deposed Prince, enraged 
once by Baltcha's criticism, threatened to take 
from him his titles, his power, his fortune. 

"And so," concluded the surly youth, "beware. 
Do not forget I am your monarch." 

[115] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Baltcha replied scornfully: 

"And what of that? Do you think I am a 
fawning courtier, fearing to lose the paltry 
chattels that are now called mine? I have had 
too much of life to value any part of it beyond 
its worth, and its worth is nothing. So far 
from trembling at your threat, I gladly would 
renounce all that I have, if I might only go 
back to my monastery to spend my remaining 
years in meditation. This trumpery vanishes. 
Remember, boy, all that is worth living for is 
to grow more intimate with God." 

And now when the weak-minded Prince was 
mumbling with hopeless misery in some desert 
retreat, the eunuch sat within the palace walls 
and planned a triumph for his successor; no 
simple review, or reception of chieftains, but a 
parade upon a field of honour such as bards 
would sing of in the rustic tokhuls, and return- 
ing warriors would glorify in the village squares. 
This man's every act arouses my admiration, but 
his genius for organisation, the rich poetry of 
his imagination, the despatch with which he 
worked are beyond my praise. He handled men 
and warriors and Princes in tens and hundreds 
and thousands as though they were tinselled 

[116] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

puppets upon a paper stage. For him the glory 
of the achievement meant nothing ; but he knew 
that royalty — and particularly the royalty of a 
parvenu — ^must shine resplendent to dazzle each 
subject's eyes. 

Upon the fourth day after the vaHant Negus 
threw himself away in a blind effort to avenge 
himself upon a traitor, and his invincible army 
had been crumpled by the forces of Shoa, he 
was marched on foot and in chains to the 
pavilion of the new Empress and forced to 
humble himself in the presence of fifty thou- 
sand Shoan warriors and a multitude of spec- 
tators. 

Early in the morning my horse was ready for 
me, and with my two French friends I rode 
through the villages that lie from the capital out 
to eastward where a clear greensward plain, 
a hollow in the palm of the hills, had been pre- 
pared to stage the triumph. As we made our 
way along, we found the broad highways and 
narrow lanes thronged with the populace going 
forth to view the spectacle. Soldiers, chieftains, 
and great rases, on foot, on mule, or cantering 
on arch-necked steeds, some with a sohtary fol- 
lower or two, Hke the bearded cross-bowmen of 

[117] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

yore, some with well armed vassals, some with 
companies of cavabymen on curveting horses 
with drummers and trumpeters trotting behind 
on mules. Ecclesiastics, with flowing white 
beards spreading over their chests aind coloured 
parasols protecting their heads from too ardent 
a celestial benediction, tripped by on donkeys; 
and the large mass of the people footed it in 
the dust, or took position on the high banks by 
the roadside to watch the colourful stream of 
humanity pour by. 

Two things were noticeable. There were no 
pedlars with sweetmeats and bottled drinks; 
and it may be that the far-sighted Baltcha had 
ruled against them. Also, in all the throng there 
was no boisterousness. On the contrary the 
greetings were soft and gentle; and none jostled 
his neighbour unduly. For this there was a 
reason, as D'Artagnan might have told. You 
do not jostle, unthinkingly, a musketeer armed 
cap-a-pie. This I had ah-eady learned when 
once, beyond the market place, my frettish horse 
had almost got beyond control. 

Turning into a short-cut, which we had used 
before, we left the flowing crowd behind us and * 
reached the vast meadow in good time for a 

[ 118 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

jump or two and a canter through the fragrant 
grass. The landscape alone was such as lifts 
the willing heart with unreasoned jubilation. 
Gentle hills patched with eucalyptus and juniper 
encompassed the plain, except where they opened 
to view the billowy vale of Shoa with the Mount 
of Monks rising dimly in the distance. The 
sky was blue and spacious with downy clouds to 
show whence came the cooling breezes; and the 
air was fragrant with the subtle perfume of the 
uplands, for the level of the plain itself was al- 
most eight thousand feet above the sea. On all 
sides trees pressed in upon the meadow. 

At the northern end of the plain, well in the 
open, a pavilion had been erected for the 
temporary court of the Empress Zeoditou and 
the Regent, Ras Taffari. Adjoining and form- 
ing part of the pavilion was an open extension 
for the reception of the Foreign Ministers. The 
pavilions were of brightly coloured silk, and 
under foot were spread rich Arab and Persian 
rugs, such as no Oriental would tread upon in 
slippered foot. The fronts of both pavilions 
were opened to look upon the broad sweep of 
the meadow. This meadow was over half a mile 
in length, oval, and around it ran a simple pal- 

[119] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

ing such as marks the inner edge of a race- 
course. 

As we arrived, some lesser chiefs of the Em- 
press's body-guard were taking places within the 
pavilion of the Foreign Ministers, and these 
with the Ministers themselves and their attaches 
and body-guards, all in full dress uniforms, and 
the members of their households, made in itself 
a spectacle of uncommon brilHancy. I know of 
few other places in the world where such a 
scene could now be enacted, — Peking, I doubt; 
Teheran, perhaps, — for here in apparent amity 
were the plenipotentiaries of Russia, Austria, 
Italy, France, Germany, Turkey and Great 
Britain, with mounted guards from Eritrea, 
Somaliland and the Punjaub. These be- 
whiskered Punjaubis, with linked mail upon 
their shoulders, block-like turbans adding to 
their lofty stature, and fluttering pennons on 
their lances to give point to their presence, were 
as solemnly at home as their brothers on the 
parade grounds of Delhi. They were familiar 
figures to me, and only as such did they catch 
my eye; for my attention, beyond the natural 
courtesies, was almost wholly taken up by the 
arriving rases. 

[120] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

On their feudal domains most of these men 
were simple warriors at peace, or even plain 
herdsmen, whose garments were of dirtied 
cotton and whose heads were crowned with bat- 
tered felt hats. They had no high-sounding 
titles; but "Master of the Piebald Pony" or 
"Father of Swift-as-the-Wind" they were called, 
justly sharing fame with their mounts. Their 
dignity was in the steadiness of their eyes, their 
honour in the blood that beat in their hearts, their 
pride in their country, their glory in their God. 
The standards by which they were judged were 
tested at every phase of the moon; and no man 
among them had reason to doubt himself in his 
own heart. So they wore their robes of cere- 
mony with simple dignity and courtly grace, as 
much at ease in the garments of velvet and cloth- 
of-gold as though seated within their tohhuls 
with homespun blankets across their shoulders. 

So they appeared. But beneath the calm of 
their brown, weathered faces no doubt there were 
depths stirred by profoundest emotions. This 
was the most glorious event of their lives. No 
courtier of a Louis ever felt greater pride in 
royalty than they in the Empress they had just 
created. And as I watched, I perceived that 

[121] 



SOUTH OF, SUEZ 

they were not stoic to their environment. They 
edged for place; they eagerly sought the oppor- 
tunity for a word or two with greater chieftains 
who could approach the throne ; slaves and pages 
wriggled a way through to whisper messages be- 
hind their ear, and were sent rushing away on 
further errands; their composure was often 
broken by the sight of old friends, and effusive 
greetings were exchanged in courtly style. 
Clutching the hilts of their jewelled scimitars 
they bowed low; they seized each other's hands; 
they embraced. In fact all about me stirred 
those numberless httle courtesies and harmless 
whispered intrigues which lend to the imperial 
sham an air of substance and reality. 

In the meantime the plain began to blaze with 
colour like a field of flowers bursting with bloom, 
with petals scattered willy-nilly. First came the 
high priests in resplendent robes, with gorgeous 
umbrellas over their heads, trotting along on 
sleek ecclesiastical mules, recalhng the days 
when the Pope was in Tours, and took their 
position opposite the Empress's pavilion, leaving 
a space a hundred yards in width, so that the 
review might pass between. Their ret?iners 

[122] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

lined the paling on either side of their masters, 
and though they were of no particular rank, the 
thick sheepskins they wore upon their shoulders, 
dyed in violent colours, irresistibly suggested a 
row of monstrous chrysanthemums. No sooner 
were the priests settled than a murmur arose 
about me, eyes were turned to the westward, 
and there, issuing from an opening in the woods, 
came the Empress and her followers. There 
was no cheering, no applause; everybody was 
silent with astonishment. 

Covered with a plain black silk cloak, with 
neck and face muffled in snowy linen, so that only 
her eyes showed, and upon her head a broad- 
brimmed felt hat, she seemed to have hit by in- 
stinct upon the nobility of simplicity. Close 
about her were several ladies-in-waiting, simi- 
larly dressed, and all mounted on mules. But 
surrounding her, and spreading far on either 
side, came such a multitude as I have rarely 
seen— a torrent of sandalled, white-clad hu- 
manity, mostly soldiers, armed with shields, 
rifles, bandoleers, and scimitars. And this wave 
bore her down upon us, deposited her at the 
entrance to her pavilion, and then broke and 

[123] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

swirled in independent eddies about the course 
until driven back into position by horsemen 
charging boldly into the press. 

At the entrance to the paviHon the great rases 
came forward, such as were not at the head of 
their warriors — and with deep bows greeted the 
Empress and escorted her to her dais within. 
There was a momentary confusion in our 
pavilion, the members of the body-guard press- 
ing forward for a better view of Menelik's 
daughter, while the last eddies of the mob 
swirled along the edge of the tent. At this mo- 
ment I heard a subdued, startled murmur be- 
hind me ; 

"Baltcha! Baltchal" 

Turning my head, I saw the philosophic hawk 
stalking down the line of rases, striking coldly, 
imperiously, with his long staff at the heads and 
shoulders of those who did not promptly fall 
back to make way for him. I held my breath, 
expecting them to seize upon him and rend him; 
but they made way before the black-clad figure, 
wincing and pushing forward their shoulders as 
he struck at them. In their eyes was the fear 
and pride of a dog struck lightly by its master. 

Bitodded Haile Guirgious, Minister of the In- 
[124] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

terior, then came to tell us the Empress was 
ready to receive us. I had already met the 
Bitodded, a noble figure of manhood, large, firm 
in build, with the countenance of a great leader. 
His features were small and clean-cut; a short, 
crisp beard gave dignity to his countenance; 
and his far-seeing eye, set beneath a lofty 
brow, indicated a deep intelligence and great 
reserve. 

"He is anxious," my companion breathed in 
my ear, "He may yet hang. They have not 
forgot that he was the favourite of the Prince." 

"He keeps his feet," I observed, as I watched 
him make his way to the side of the Empress's 
dais. 

"Ah, yes. He knows where to land. The 
trouble is he is too bright." 

I thought with amusement of Caesar's, "Have 
men about me who are fat ;" for at the Empress's 
shoulder was the dark ascetic countenance of 
Baltcha, pinched, thin-lipped, with high arched 
nose and shadowy eyes, like the mummy of 
Rameses. 

We paid our respects to the Empress, who re- 
mained veiled to her eyes; but this glimpse 
seemed sufficient to betray a character that was 

[125] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

gentle, sympathetic, unspoiled either by weak 
vanity or vain cynicism. No sooner had this 
preliminary reception ended than an uproar 
burst forth in the space before the pavilion, and 
there, cavorting upon the green, was the court 
fool. He came as a warrior, burlesquing with 
timely ridicule the boasted achievements of the 
fighting men. 

In his head-dress was a bunch of grass to 
mock the gallants who wear a sprig of green 
to show they have killed their man; and around 
his girdle were the mantles of his slain. Fling- 
ing himself upon the ground, he crawled on his 
stomach to within thirty feet of the throne, aim- 
ing his rifle, and shouting "bang" to punctuate 
his tale. Leaping to his feet, he whirled a 
scimitar about his head, charged imaginary 
enemies, and shrieked in panting accents how he 
had saved the throne by killing ten thousand men 
at Silti. One of the court attendants, dressed 
simply in white, and armed with nothing 
more than a staff, unimpressed by the general 
laughter, finally stepped forward, touched him 
with the staff, and bade him begone. Scarcely 
had he run aside, screaming defiance, than with 
a muffled hammer of hoofs the first of the re- 

[126] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

turning warriors bore down in a wild stampede 
upon the pavilion. 

It was a sight to lift the heart, to make one 
rise in his stirrups stiffened with sheer thrill. 
At the head, on a richly caparisoned horse, whose 
coat of gold and silver filigree on blue cloth 
swept the grass, came the first ras in rich robes 
of gold and purple, with a lion's mane for a cape, 
and a head-dress made from the tufts of lions' 
tails. On his left arm he bore a, round shield 
of brown suede leather overlaid with hammered 
gold, while round and round his head his keen 
scimitar hissed, as his horse curveted and made 
fantasia before the throne. Pressing at his heels 
in a wild riot of colour came the screaming 
warriors of Shoa, brandishing rifles and lances, 
with their ponies plunging and shying amid a 
tangle of weapons and cloaks draped from their 
necks and saddle cruppers — ^trophies of war, 
taken but five days since from the invaders from 
the North. The final act of the ras was to fling 
himself from his horse, to rush to the edge of 
the pavilion, shouting of his deeds, loudly pro- 
claiming his undying loyalty, and then to sink 
quietly in a solemn genuflection before the 
Empress. 

[ 127 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

She hardly noticed him, for abeady a second 
company was charging up the course, and the 
stern attendant in white waved the first ras aside. 
Yet that moment was the supreme moment of 
his hfe. He had come fresh from the battle- 
field, flushed with victory, and in the presence 
of all the valiant ones of Shoa, his valour had 
been proclaimed. 

To us cynics of a soft and cynic land, jaded 
with luxury, callous with self-sufficiency, vic- 
tims of bathos, yet unimpressionable to realities, 
such a spectacle is nothing more than a spectacle 
— a circus parade, worth so much a head. But 
it was infinitely more. The earnestness, the 
abandon, the nervous frenzy which seemed to 
agitate these warriors as they shouted of their 
deeds, then sank in calm obeisance before their 
monarch, seemed to me to hold all the signifi- 
cance of the salute of Napoleon's cuirassiers at 
Austerlitz. As I watched the companies charge 
by, with clashing arms, and songs, and frantic 
shouts, I remembered this: that in all Africa 
there remains to-day but this one independent 
nation, that that nation was strong and inde- 
pendent and Christian centuries before the Cru- 
saders laid siege to Acre, and that if Ethiopea 

[128] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

had ever fallen before Islam, even as Nubia fell. 
Great Britain probably would not hold Egypt 
to-day, and Africa might still be dark from 
Omdurman to Delagoa Bay. 

Fifty thousand men or more must have passed 
before us. That nimiber comes within my 
reckoning. And all these men were warriors of 
the first class, though they represented but a 
small proportion of the nation's resources; and 
every one had fought hand to hand in battle. 

Full in the van came Fitaorari Apte Guir- 
gious, the greatest of the rases. A quarter of 
an hour before his contingent reached the pa- 
vilion, his war drums heralded his approach. 
There were more than thirty of them, with the 
drummers mounted on mules, and it was hard 
to say when the vibrations first reached the ear, 
for they grew from a whisper to a pulsing roar 
without any apparent transition. The sound 
stirred the blood, and set the nerves to tingling 
until it was almost impossible not to leap in the 
air and shout. Before the drummers strode 
other musicians who blew on long horns that 
blared like Manchu trumpets. The uproar 
seemed to fill the air with the high tension that 
comes before a tempest; and to accentuate this 

[ 129 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

impression there suddenly appeared a singing 
woman, shouting random snatches of warlike 
songs and soldiers' ballads. 

The Fitaoran conducted himself with re- 
straint. The solemn dignity of a very great 
chief rested upon him, and he advanced slowly, 
his excited horse stepping daintily and chafing 
at the bit, as he faced the paviHon. Instead of 
the popular hon's mane, the Minister of War had 
over his shoulders a cloak of otter skins, while 
rising from the chaplet that bound his head was 
a soft ostrich plume, the rare Wallo badge of 
royalty. In the momentary silence when the 
Fitaoran faced the Empress, suddenly there 
came from the multitude a spontaneous burst of 
applause; and this was extraordinary, for until 
that moment there had been no cheer, nor rifle 
shot, nor shout of approbation. It was one of 
those strange occasions when the crowd is domi- 
nated by the spectacle. The warriors required 
no acclamation from the mob. Even the 
Fitaoraris ovation started in the tent of the 
foreign Ministers. 

Following the Fitaoran came old Has Demis- 
sie, looking, with his broad white beard upon his 
chest and green parasol over his head, for all 

[130] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

the world like a distinguished prelate. His 
robes were as resplendent as an archbishop's, 
and instead of indulging in the fantasia of 
youths, he merely bowed with solemn gravity. 
Yet this was the man who had supported the 
right flank, helped to beat off the furious on- 
slaught of Mas Omar, and after repeated at- 
tempts carried the central hill. 

In strong contrast to this old warrior was 
Lies Gesta, straight and young, who had just 
succeeded to the honours of his father. Riding 
his horse almost into the Empress's paviHon, he 
cried out: 

"My men are scattered, and the strength of 
my father is gone; but as for me, O Daughter 
of Menelik, my Empress, I pledge my arm and 
my honour to you." 

Thus the rases made obeisance, and pledged 
their loyalty; but they were merely the leaders 
of wave after wave of loyal warriors, warriors 
on foot, on mule, on horseback. These masses 
of men charged furiously upon the pavihon, 
clashing their arms, shouting, screaming, twirl- 
ing scimitars about their heads, brandishing their 
rifles. In the heat of their excitement they 
pantomimed the events of the battle, and the 

[131] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

heroic deeds they performed. Bearded old war- 
riors with flashing eyes danced madly before 
the assembled court, aU consciousness of them- 
selves lost in a passion of enthusiasm. Younger 
men, aspiring to high favour, rushed almost to 
the foot of the throne, hoping that the Empress 
would be impressed by their prowess. Whole 
companies of lesser chiefs charged with a roar 
of hoofs to within twenty-five feet of the royal 
dais, then brought their mounts back on their 
haunches, plunging and shying amid a tangle 
of accoutrements and trophies. 

Standing before the pavilion were two men 
in white robes. These were the guardians of the 
steps to the throne. Armed with thin staffs and 
nothing more, they checked the wild impetuosity 
of warriors and kept the torrent of horsemen 
within bounds. Cold and unflinching, they 
budged not a hair's breadth in the face of charges 
that might well have broken a British square. 
On their faces were stern frowns of concentra- 
tion; and except to cry sharply, "Stop," or "Pass 
on," they seldom spoke. Nothing escaped them. 
A ras, overestimating his own dignity and seek- 
ing to join the chieftains assembhng within the 

[132] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

pavilion, was ordered away by them as per- 
emptorily as a presmnptuous hostler, while some 
unpretentious old man would be given a place 
of honour. They knew everybody, and under- 
stood the finest shades of court precedence; yet 
there was an ease, a graceful simplicity in their 
manner that disarmed any suspicion of arro- 
gance. Only once did they give way for any 
advancing dignitary; and this was when the 
Ahouna Petrus, the Coptic pontiff elevated by 
the Negus Mikael, came before the throne as a 
prisoner. 

Pale, weary, and anxious, his cream-coloured 
skin and silky white beard made him con- 
spicuous among the dusky Abyssinians. He 
wore a robe of black, and came on a led mule 
to the front of the pavilion, where he dismounted 
slowly and heavily and advanced towards the 
dais with God only knows what doubts and mis- 
givings. The multitude strained forward to 
witness the reception. He was a great prelate. 
Would the throne dare to consider him a traitor? 
And, if so, what fate awaited him? But the 
Ahouna Petrus, lifting his eyes, saw that he 
was looked upon graciously by the pious and for- 

[ 133 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

giving Empress; and the prelates came forward 
and embraced him, and escorted him to a place 
of honour opposite the pavilion. 

To me it seemed like a dream, the vision of 
an animated tapestry of Bayeaux, showing the 
valom* of a chivalrous nation sweeping by in 
every rich and royal colour, with a background 
of Nile-green hills under a blue and downy sky. 
At the same time it was not possible to forget 
that these were fighting men, fresh from the field 
of battle, men whom I might some day en- 
coimter. The traihng trophies told the tale; 
but more to the point were the rifles, the mitra- 
illeuses, and the mountain guns neatly packed 
on mule back. The heavy guns were not on 
show ; they were parked about the GuebL More- 
over, from Ras Kassa's well-organised men — 
some of whom had fought as volunteers against 
the Turks in Tripoli — ^to the tangle of Galla 
horsemen brandishing their lances, there flamed 
a spirit of valour that had never been dulled by 
defeat. In the light of their fanaticism, it 
struck me how doubly fortunate was the fact of 
their Christianity, and the chastening effect of 
Kitchener's blow at the Mahdi at Omdurman. 

It chanced that Ligaba Bay ana stood by me, 
[134] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

so I formed more than a passing impression of 
his garments. His head-dress was formed of 
the tufts from lions' tails, fastened at the base 
with rich silver filigree on a silken turban of 
green and yellow with streamers flowing down 
behind. Upon his shoulders was the customary 
lion's mane, caught at the front with a jewelled 
clasp. This cloak was attached to a mantle of 
golden velvet richly embroidered with silver 
thread; while the long undercoat was of scarlet 
embroidered in gold. His long, slim, sweeping 
scimitar was encased in a scabbard of purple 
velvet edged with gold, and gemmed at the hilt. 
He bore the weight of this gorgeous apparel with 
ease and grace, his sturdy body, his dusky 
countenance and stern steady eyes giving ample 
dignity to the garish richness of his garments. 

It was a strange sight to see his contingent 
advancing, bearing aloft religious emblems, the 
staff and crucifix, and the banners of St. George 
and St. Gabriel; but more impressive still was 
the sight of the prisoners. Like the burghers 
of Calais, gowned in black, with chains about 
their wrists and necks, and bearing stones upon 
their shoulders, these illustrious chieftains of 
yesterday passed by humbly on foot with bowed 

[135] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

heads. There were only a few, for beyond the 
Mediterranean and the Caucasus prisoners are 
an unnecessary nuisance, unless they be worthy 
of ransom; though I must affirm that on this 
occasion a striking leniency had been shown, the 
bulk of the prisoners being sent back to their 
homes, unmolested. 

Last of all came the INTegus himself. 

A week before, the timid souls of the capital 
who had looked northward into the night at the 
shimmering lightning behind Entoto and listened 
to the ominous roll of distant thunder, envisioned 
the Xegus holding his ravening thousands in 
leash upon the slopes of Silti before sweep- 
ing forward into the city. They imagined him 
coming with flame and scimitar, amid the thun- 
der of hoofs, and the shouts of ruthless con- 
querors. They had trembled at his approach. 
. . . And now he was at hand. The pulsing 
roar of the FitaorarVs drums and the tramping 
and champing of fretful horses filled the air with 
a tumult, but the crowd, fastening its eyes upon 
the approaching IN'egus, fell silent. 

The escort spread away before him, and there 
in the open space was disclosed the dread Abou 
Tekelel, "Father of Koll-Them-Up," the Negus 

[136] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Mikael. In black, with a band of white about 
his head, and chained by the wrist to a lesser 
ras of Harrar, he came forward, limping slightly, 
to the very edge of the tent. Who knows what 
weight of grief, what agony of shame bore down 
upon him? He thought of his weak minded and 
disgraced son ; of the treacherous Gebri-Christos ; 
of his own ruthless and determined effort to dis- 
rupt his country, the ancient land of his fore- 
fathers; and he knew that all was lost, that his 
long lineage had come to a disgraceful and com- 
plete end. He who had been king but yester- 
day was nothing; and his son was less than 
nothing. His noble features, grizzled beard, 
and the stern, anxious expression of his coun- 
tenance inspired instant respect and sympathy; 
so that many for the moment forgot the suffer- 
ing he had brought to others. Yet there were 
hundreds in that assemblage who would have 
dared to speed a bullet or plunge a knife into 
his heart were it not for the cold vigilance of 
Baltcha. 

Approaching the throne, he cast a swift, com- 
prehensive glance from under his frowning eye- 
brows at the men who supported it — ^kindred, 
brothers in arms, rases who had stood with him 

[ 137 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

at the bedside of Menelik and pledged their 
honour to uphold the old Emperor's choice . . . 
the wandering Lidj Yassou. Then he sank on 
his knee before the Empress, sister of his wife. 
A gesture, a nod, a look of compassion from her, 
might have meant the salvation of his family. 

She averted her eyes. Rising slowly to his 
feet, the fallen Negus turned about, glanced 
absently here and there, as though he were lost, 
and was borne away like a fallen leaf in the tor- 
rent of warriors that poured westward. . . . 

My companion whispered in my ear: 

"It is virtually over. Let us go now while 
we have the opportunity. Do not forget that 
we are engaged for tiffin!" 

It was almost two o'clock. We had been 
standing since early morning. But we waited 
to meet Has Taffari, Regent, successor to Lidj 
Yassou; and I marked with pleasure the smiling 
alertness of this new ruler of Ethiopea. Slim, 
bearded like a Spaniard, slightly sallow, his 
countenance alight with intelligence and good 
will, he augured well for the future of his 
country. 

We made our farewells, swung into saddle, 
and threaded our way rapidly through that great 

[138] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

jumbled multitude, until we reached an open 
lane, when we broke into a gallop. For tiffin 
with M. Hallot in his rose-embowered bungalow, 
set in a grove of eucalyptus, with a murmuring 
stream beside it, is not an event to be lightly 
forgotten . . . though Princes fall, and empires 
totter. 

The following night, muffled against the sud- 
den chill, we mounted our ponies, said farewell 
to the little group in the compound yard, and in 
another minute were scampering through the 
darkness down the rough rocky declivity that 
formed the chief exit from the capital. Our 
Arab guide rode a splendid horse, and he pushed 
our mounts to the limit over deep-rutted roads, 
around thorn-hedged zarebas, past smoky huts, 
until we struck the open plain. Then, heedless 
of all danger from water-pits, surprises, or 
sharp-cut dongas, we went loping away under 
the stars. . . . 



[ 139 ] 




f ^^■<=^hTm(f:ma^^'W^"^'^ ••nrne-'muiiiiMi 



Es-Sawahil 



THERE is a saying that the most glorious 
view of Aden is to be had from the stern 
of the vessel which bears you away. I believe 
that is substantially correct; though, in truth, I 
did not linger over the view at all, save for one 
backward glance at the Cyclopean wink of the 
baleful beacon on Ras Morbit by which Great 
Britain links up its empire — one last look in the 
darkness before our ship swung out for Cape 
Guardafui, to skim the bleak Horn of Africa. 

With an inexpressible sense of freedom and 
content, I wiped the cindery dust from my eyes, 
and turned my blossoming thoughts to the white 
coral shores and green groves of Mombasa. 

The ship was one of the noble ancients of the 
Messageries Maritimes, full of character and 
barnacled memories. 

"On the Company's books," I was told, "it is 
valued at about seven francs! You see, it 
worked off its original cost twenty years 
ago!" . . . 

[ 141 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Long, black, and narrow, with but a single 
deck, broken by sky-lights, and rakish masts de- 
signed for canvas, it preserved all the character- 
istics of those early liners to the Far East upon 
which Chan Ok, the pirate of the China Sea, 
used to prey. Its sisters have gone down en- 
meshed in nets of West River junks strung on 
hawsers of Manila hemp, while yellow men 
swarmed out of the mists, up the careening sides, 
and through the square, window-like ports. 
This memory may seem distant, yet we know 
well enough that a broken propellor-shaft might 
promise a similar fate for us upon the point of 
the Horn, off our starboard bow. 

Here, several months before, a British com- 
missioner in a gunboat came to inquire into the 
loss of a trading vessel. The nearest chief re- 
ceived him in primitive state, seated in an arm- 
chair, and leaning on his elbows with a bored 
expression. He, denied all knowledge of the 
wreck; yet the very chair he sat upon had come 
from the captain's cabin ! 

Our ship was a ship to travel in I 

Cows lowed in pens, and sheep and poultry 
added to the farm-yard aspect of the quarter- 
deck. The cook had a kitchen garden in the 

[142] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

galley; and geraniums grew in a window-box in 
the steward's cuddy. 

The captain, a portly and jovial man, paraded 
the deck beaming upon us all, gesticulating ex- 
pansively with his long spy-glass, and entered 
heartily into our discussion when expressed in 
language he could comprehend. On the night 
before our arrival in Mombasa harbour, when 
a small British company gathered about him, 
mellow and merry, and toasted him with full cups, 
roaring into the soft tropical darkness their con- 
viction that "he was a jolly good fellow," he was 
visibly affected. 'Not understanding the words, 
he instinctively felt that they fitted the occasion, 
so he took the lead; and waving his glass in 
gentle rhythm above his head, with an expression 
mingled of melancholy and poetic resignation, 
his rubicund face looking for all the world like 
the picture of a sanctimonious friar, he picked 
up the voices one by one until he brought out in 
one pandemonic roar the fact that he was a jolly 
good fellow! 

Among others, there were quiet missionary 
priests, dividing their time between wrinkle- 
browed study and merry, mock-serious games of 
back-gammon with the children; some sardonic 

[ 143 ] 



SOUTH or SUEZ 

poilus returning, broken, to the colonies ; a mixed 
lot of British officers and civilians; and the 
families of officials in Madagascar, Seychelles, 
and the Mauritius. There were a couple of 
pretty Belgian girls aboard, too, and a large 
moon accompanied us, rising with glowing coun- 
tenance in true romantic style. And to cap it, 
there was an infatuated young Enghshman. 
He had no logical right to be infatuated. But 
he couldn't help it; and he suffered spasms of 
silence when the roguish Belgian maid who had 
made roast meat of his heart turned her glisten- 
ing eyes at others. . . , 

There was a following sea, and we swept down 
the long coast without starthng incident, en- 
joying the calm procession of sunny days, the 
fresh whisper of the sea about our sides, and the 
noisome, colourful circus of the sailors and their 
wives and mothers and aunts and offspring which 
the fo'c's'le held for us. 

Every race and colour of Africa swarmed up 
forward; but, unlike the lascar-crewed ships of 
the British merchant marine, Africa was actu- 
ally in the ascendancy. Tarbushes of every 
height and colour, crowning black, fuzzy heads, 
took the place of turbans and white skull caps. 

[ 144 ] 



o 



o 







SOUTH OF SUEZ 

It seemed almost as though the ship had an ob- 
ject in collecting human specimens from Mas- 
saoua in Italian Eritrea to Seychelles and Mada- 
gascar. Slim, handsome Somali types of the 
north blended in all degrees with the heavier, 
more powerful Bantu stock from the south. 

To one whose imagination can swing a bridge 
across the gaps that history is so slow in filling 
with connected facts, this long and silent coast, 
low-lying under a dazzling sun, presents a mass 
of scenes romantic and significant stretching far 
back into antiquity. 

Somaliland, cut into spheres of influence — an 
influence that is only gingerly exercised — stretch- 
ing from the Red Sea almost to Mombasa, in 
British East Africa, is divided among France, 
Great Britain, and Italy. The small ports are 
little better than open roads, with small fortified 
garrison posts as protection against native sur- 
prise. The Juba river, near the boundary of 
Somaliland and British East Africa, land of the 
Gallas, recently the scene of a massacre of white 
settlers characterising the lawless unrest in the 
unsubdued savage land back of the Benadir 
coast, is the first river to empty into the sea south 
of Port Said. A stretch of almost three thou- 

[ 145 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

sand miles of coast without a river ; and the Juba 
itself is obstructed by a bar and is navigable only 
by small craft! South of the Juba there is only 
one other stream, the Tana, before Mombasa is 
reached; but then the moist, rich Equatorial 
coast commences, with a goodly number of small 
streams and small but well-protected harbours. 

The coast from Lamu, at the mouth of the 
Tana, southward, including the maritime plain 
of British East Africa, German East Africa 
(off whose coast lies Zanzibar), and Portuguese 
East Africa, is rich and wet and rank with the 
luxuriance of tropical verdure. It is a land of 
great promise. But inland there is greater 
promise still; for the land rises in great ridges 
and plateaus clear back to central Africa where 
the chain of great lakes, forming the headwaters 
of the Nile, the Congo, and the Zambesi, lie. 
For this country, Mombasa has become the nat- 
ural entrepot^ in competition with Dar-es-Sa- 
laam, the German port of entry below Zan- 
zibar. 

Mombasa is ancient ; and it has been the scene 
of many bloody conflicts between natives and in- 
vaders, but more particularly between the Arabs 
and the Portuguese, who struggled long for its 

[146] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

possession until the Imams of Muscat finally 
gained the ascendancy, and the red Mahometan 
banner flew over the great Portuguese citadel 
that still looks out upon the Indian Ocean. 

A railroad runs from Mombasa to Victoria 
Nyanza, and great agricultural centres are grow- 
ing along this artery ; while at the lake end there 
is a port from which steamers make the tour 
of the entire inland coast. Uganda, the inland 
kingdom, has been touched with its magic and 
shows it in every phase of its life. Automobiles 
are in more general use in the larger towns of 
Uganda than in North China. . . . 

Mombasa's present importance lies in its har- 
bour and its railroad. It is a commercial centre. 
Big business is being developed here in a near- 
up-to-date manner. Steamships and railroads 
combine to give the place an air of bustle. 
There is a large club run on a commercial basis ; 
several hotels and rooming-houses; a couple of 
struggling cinema houses; a boat club, a tennis 
club, a golf links; large European stores; and 
taxi-cabs. It is an island of coral formation, 
with a coat of green through which tiled and 
corrugated-iron roofs are thrust. The main 
streets are broad and white and glare in the 

[ 147 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

humid sunlight; the sea-front bustles with ac- 
tivity ; and the bazaars hum with business. 

There is much about it that is beautiful, that 
awakens the imagination, that quickens the pulse. 
But, essentially, it is a place to pass through! 
It is a gate to the great country that spreads 
away inland with all the wonder of savage Africa 
in its*arms; it is a gate to the open sea through 
which the weary may escape to fresher lands! 

The true romance of the coast is expressed in 
Zanzibar. . . . 

One evening, shortly after my arrival in Mom- 
basa, the young infatuated Englishman invited 
me to go riding in the moonlight in a motorcar 
which he had borrowed for the occasion. I 
thought the invitation curious, until he blurted 
out the explanation that he was taking the Bel- 
gian maid, too, and she insisted upon a chaperon. 
She said that I would qualify. ... I very tact- 
fully occupied the front seat with the Goanese 
driver, and we sailed about the island over dim, 
smooth coral roads over which bent great mango 
trees dripping with large, juicy fruit, large as 
small melons, juicy as overripe tomatoes I We 
ran close to the shore, so that the murmur of the 
sea whispered in our ears ; the moon soared over 

[ 148 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

the sea ; the night, soft and bahny, seemed to hold 
its breath with an ahnost overwhehning intensity 
of emotion. Suddenly I heard the infatuated 
Englishman break the tremulous silence: 

''Ohj ma cherie/" he whispered tenderly, with 
an agony of yearning in his voice. "Ma cherie. 
Je faime! . , . Je faime! , , , Je t'aime! . . . 
Je , , , Oh, damn! . . ." 

There was the sound of a heavy blow, a sup- 
pressed scream, and then silence I I scrambled 
to my feet and looked back. 

A ripe mango had fallen and hit the Infatu- 
ated One on the back of the neck. 

That is Mombasa. 



[149] 




Zanzibar — The Spicy Isle 

AS the Aratoon Apcar — an old acquaintance 
of the Bay of Bengal — drifted aimlessly 
into the placid roads, I suddenly learned that 
my table companion from Mombasa was inter- 
ested in an attempt to control the sisal crop of 
British East Africa. So I missed the first ex- 
panding view of Zanzibar town; for Zanzibar 
was but another port, while sisal is always an ad- 
venture. 

Eventually we came on deck for a glimpse of 
the town, congested, inchoate, tumbled like a lot 
of concrete blocks on the dazzling coral beach 
and into the lime-like waters. The Sultan's 
palace, as ugly as a Saratoga hotel, obtruded 
itself near the centre; while dirty little alley- 
ways ran down to the beach, where they emptied 
their filth into the sparkling waters among a flot- 
sam of tatter-sail dhows coasting from village 
to village with cargoes of berities, makanda mats, 
cloves, coral blocks, and copra. A few broad- 
verandaed piles hung over the sands, while right 

[ 151 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

and left a skyline of palms, thrust above a solid 
dark green base, indicated the rich, tropical ver- 
dure that is characteristic of this isle of spice and 
romance. 

To seaward some tiny islands were scattered 
like bits of polished jade upon a tray of ruffled, 
stained, sky-blue velvet; while in the offing the 
skeleton of a wreck bleaching on its rack of jag- 
ged coral gave the lie to the music of the waves 
whispering and licking about it. 

I looked quizzically at the sisal man. 

"No fear," he said wearily. "I'm fed up with 
niggers. I want to see nothing between here 
and Durban. My soul is satisfied with what it's 
seen of black Africa. Give me one-quarter per 
cent, on my turn-over, and I'll camp on Jermyn 
Street for the rest of my life. Besides," he 
added plaintively, "there's nothing here but spice 
and pestilence." 

With this ringing in my ears, I went overboard 
and sought the shore alone, since no one had 
come to meet me. 

Aden, from which I had but recently departed, 
is a man grown gaunt and rugged in honest 
strife; but Zanzibar is a courtesan, whimsical, 
gay, sullen, presenting many aspects. Warm, 

[ 152 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

rich, beautiful, concealing with dissembling art 
its sinister spots, it lavishes its charms, intoxi- 
cates with its beauty, smothers with its opulence ; 
or suddenly, after a smouldering silence, it rends 
itself with rage. The screaming tornado rips 
its garments of verdure to tatters, bony-fingered 
pestilence goes leering down its dark alleyways, 
fever shakes the life out of its victims. And 
afterwards, the bright sun sparkles upon the 
rain-washed foliage, and the island smiles again 
with the innocent radiance of a maiden. . . . 

I cleared the Customs, pushing my way 
through a polyglot collection of Oriental and 
East Coast natives; and, followed by my dazed 
Lamu boy shouldering my bag, I plunged 
straight into the maze of narrow, slimy, steamy 
alleyways that form the thoroughfares of Zan- 
zibar Town. 

The great concrete piles of ancient Arab struc- 
tures bulked overhead, closing together in places 
to form clumsy arches. Fronds of palms, am- 
bitious shoots, luxuriant creepers, dripping with 
moisture, struggled upward to the light. The 
air was heavy with the rich, sweet smell of copra 
and the spicy tang of cloves. In and out of the 
huge carved doors and along the stone-paved 

[ 153 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

alleys, bland Khojas, wet looking Hindus, and 
Parsis, carrying umbrellas and lifting their 
flimsy trousers or draggling liodrunks from the 
slime, made their way from office to office on 
strange errands. Hamal carts, pushed and 
banged and bulHed along by half -naked, sweat- 
ing, singing, swearing Swahilis, filled the air with 
noise *and confusion. Bicycle bells jangled as 
irritable Goanese rounded unsuspected corners ; 
birds whistled and shrieked from the house-tops ; 
and the muffled rattle of typewriters added a 
staccato to the concert. Amid this confusion I 
came to a black, richly carved door set in a vast 
mouldy wall pierced with iron-barred rifle ports, 
and recognised in this my factory and my castle. 

A solemn black door-keeper, in white kanza 
and red tarhush, arose at my approach and 
pushed open the door; and I ascended a long, 
dark flight of stairs through an atmosphere sti- 
fling with the odour of spices. Half way up, 
these stairs gave access to my future offices, and 
higher still to the spacious living quarters over- 
hanging the coral beach and looking out upon 
the harbour. 

It was a busy day. 

[154] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

From dark, hidden chambers underneath came 
the sound of rushing feet, bursts of shrill 
laughter, and uproar of tumbling reed sacks of 
cloves and copra, the singsong chant of the tally- 
clerks, panting songs; from the beach, shouts of 
the boatmen swinging their barges close to the 
shore; and from the open bay the distant rattle 
of winches as the gluttonous ships gorged them- 
selves with spices. The office presented a flur- 
ried aspect of scattered invoices and bills-of -lad- 
ing, perspiring Parsis, and harried Banian clerks 
bending desperately over typewriters; while the 
factor, a bland little Cockney, hopped about with 
innocuous energy, playing the role of Director of 
the Universe. 

I gave him my salaams, told him my intentions, 
and left him to revel in his monopoly of the 
American spice trade, while I retired to the se- 
clusion of the spacious veranda overlooking the 
"most costly roof in East Africa," and with a 
woven palm basket of juicy fruit by my side, 
stretched myself blissfully in a long Indian chair, 
and smiled at the recollection of parched Aden. 

Business did not immediately engross me. 
Certain events had transpired to fill me with a 

[ 155 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

passing cynicism. But I delighted in watching 
the ambitious little factor outdoing himself for 
my edification. 

He snatched control of the clove market; he 
reeked of copra; he purchased a small fleet of 
dhows for the navigation of Victoria INTyanza; 
he conjured tonnage out of empty seas; he even 
wheedled space from the sea lords of His Bri- 
tannic Majesty; he went so far as to imagine him- 
self into a fortune based on the sale of heche-de- 
mer to the Chinese epicures of New York and 
'Frisco; and, at last, bursting with a spasm of 
secret patriotism, he disappeared mysteriously 
in a small boat for the mainland, where he as- 
sumed the role of soldier, serving the King in 
swamp and jungle against von Lettow's black 
men. I ran across him a year later, twittering 
over new plans despite his black-water fever. 

He was disappointed at the lack of interest 
shown in his dramatic departure; but this mo- 
mentary cloud faded rapidly behind a flash of 
new interest. 

"How many engagements have you been in? 
IVe been in nineteen! And forty goes of fever I 
They expect me to die, you know I" 

I didn't expect him to die. I knew he 
[166] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

wouldn't. I hope to hear of him some day cor- 
nering the oyster crop to foster the wabus in- 
dustry of Baffin's Bay. . . . 

The humorous element in his departure, I 
must say, had been^ aggravated at the time by a 
good deal of irritation at the position in which 
I was left ; for I was obliged to fill in nearly all 
my time with work, worry, and gusts of gid- 
diness. Ships ceased calling; the "most costly 
roof in East Africa" converted itself into a sieve; 
and the little rains came on in great floods, soak- 
ing through the roof as though through sugar 
and pouring in upon ten thousand bales of pre- 
cious spices ; while a plague of rats gnawed gap- 
ing holes in every carefully weighed sack; and 
I began to wake to ghostly silences at night, and 
hear whimpers in the chamber, and the waves 
sneering malevolently on the beach, and the stiff 
palm fronds cracking their knuckles, and little 
gusts of rain pattering over the corrugated-iron 
roofs and spitting in my face. 

This was not good for me. One of my prede- 
cessors had gone through something similar, and 
he ended by wincing with physical pain every 
time a wave broke on the beach, and at every 
step forward imagined that the earth was cav- 

[ 157 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

ing in before him. Neuralgia succeeded insom- 
nia, and insomnia succeeded neui'algia; so even- 
tually they had to send him touring all over the 
world to find a place where he could sleep. 

Suddenly I was tickled with a sense of the 
ridiculous, and the world grinned back. So I 
proceeded to become acquainted with my assis- 
tants and hamals. 

The clove broker was a black-bearded Khoja, 
soft in speech, courteous in manner, and very 
clever in his dealings. He wore a long black 
coat, soft, floppy white linen trousers, sandals, 
and an umbrella ; and he took a fatherly interest 
in my welfare, dragging me forth to peer in 
darksome godowns where pungent cloves were 
heaped in hillocks twenty-five feet high. Breath- 
ing mysterious trade secrets and exuding cloves 
from every seam and fold of his voluminous 
garments, he drifted into the ofiice like a dark, 
brooding cloud touched with bits of sun- 
shine, and never came. unwanted nor stayed too 
long. . . . 

Ah Bhanji, who scoured the steaming bazaars 
in the interests of Manchester looms, was also a 
Khoja, but of a different sort. Ali was bump- 
tious. Ambition boiled within him. Dumpy 

[158] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

and Napoleonic ( save that he chewed alternately 
a stained moustache and betel nut packed in 
lime) , he cluttered up and down the stairs twenty 
times a day, every time presenting a different 
countenance. Frenzied with some petty anxiety, 
bursting with pride over some clever stroke, slily 
silent over a maturing plan, chuckling at the 
latest bon mot of the cloth bazaar, breathing a 
forbidden rumour with nervous dread and de- 
light, he filled each passing day with novelty and 
inspiration. Claiming me as his property, he 
dragged me into the bazaars to smoke sweet 
cigarettes with Banians, tell fabulous yarns to 
Khojas, sip coffee with Arabs, and pass the time 
of day with almost every chance-met Zanzibari. 
Beaming benevolently, his pock-marked face 
radiating good will, he would say persuasively: 

"Ah, here is the house of Jan Hansraj ! Oh, 
how many times Jan Hansraj, he say, 'You 
come my house !' yVhat you think, bwana?'\ . . 
And in another moment I would find myself 
steered into the presence of young Jan Hansraj, 
squatting over coffee and exchanging compli- 
ments and yarns with him. 

Now here was romance that most folk would 
have passed, unknowing, by; for Jan Hansraj 's 

[ 159 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

father financed Tipoo Tib; and Tipoo Tib was 
the great Zanzibar Arab who fought over and 
conquered, in his search for ivory (white and 
black), all that vast territory which stretches 
from the head waters of the Congo and the Nile 
to the waters of the Indian Ocean between Cape 
Delgado and Mogadishe. This Tipoo Tib was 
the chief support and guide of Stanley in his 
perambulations about central Africa; and prime 
factor in the rescue of Emin Pasha, who was re- 
luctantly obliged to abdicate from the inner Sou- 
dan when Gordon was awaiting with cynical 
amusement the fate that engulfed him at Khar- 
toum. . . . 

So the tales I heard nonchalantly spoken be- 
tween weaving wreaths of cigarette smoke and 
over cardamom-flavoured coffee, of white ivory 
and black, of piratical dhows and sinister court 
intrigues, of the seething slave-market around 
the corner and the great safaris that gathered at 
Bagamoyo on the mainland across the way, and 
vanished into the heart of the Black Continent 
for twelve and fourteen years at a stretch — 
these tales were such as you hear over narghilehs 
amid the babble of the bazaar, but can never, 
never remember to repeat in prose. 

[160] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

I saw much of the tangled, shm^, tawdry, 
teeming bazaar in Ah's company. He was a 
good tutor, omitting nothing, as might a finicky 
Parsi, anxious not to offend a sahib's nice taste 
or corrupt his own. He jibbered, and grunted, 
and nodded his head solemnly or grinned maH- 
ciously, and initiated me in all the mysteries. 
Once he even took me to look at his sister, though 
I promised to pretend I saw nothing. Down an 
alley in the tin bazaar we passed a certain shop. 

"There, hwana^ look ! It is she !" 

Squatting on the floor near the door of the 
shop, with a nearly naked baby, tubby and tat- 
tered with tinsel and baubles, tumbling about her, 
Ali's sister presented a lovely picture. Her 
complexion was warm and delicately glowing; 
her hair, black and smooth, seemed to glisten 
with Hf e ; while her large eyes gazed with abstrac- 
tion down the tempting thoroughfare. There 
was about her an air of pensive melancholy, of 
unrest, of suppressed fire, that was tempered 
and rendered beautiful by the cold cameo fine- 
ness of her features, the undisturbed tranquilHty 
of her pose. 

Ali twitched nervously at my elbow, no doubt 
regretting his indiscretion, and I passed on won- 

[161] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

dering at the destiny that left such genuine 
beauty to grow up in darkness in the back alley 
of a bazaar — to rear brown brats whose whole 
object in life would be to sell shoddy cloth, bits 
of tins and sweetmeats, and to haggle shrilly 
over pice. . . . 

Zanzibar Town is the great metropolis of the 
East Coast. It is Rome to the dusky pilgrim; 
it is Paris to the reckless wanderers, from the 
Bantu folk of Cape Delgado to the sons of the 
corsairs of Oman. Its clubs; its coffee shops; 
its cinemas ; its dark, arched rooms, where dusky 
belles from India, Arabia, the Somali Coast, and 
Zanzibar giggle and shrill and dance monotonous 
dances; its spreading mango trees under whose 
shelter the torches burn and the tom-toms beat 
the measures of night-long ngomas; its shops 
timibling with riches of roughly carved ivory and 
ebony, or hammered Cingalese silver and gems; 
its bazaars, gaudy with cheap cloth — hikoys, 
hodrunks, han%as, bright with prints of flags and 
ships and emblems of royalty; the great ships 
lying in its roads, pouring into the lap of black 
Africa the increasing luxuries of Europe; the 
dhows bearing commerce from the Persian Gulf, 
the Seychelles, and Madagascar — all, aU and 

[ 162 ] 




{J ji 




Pen 



a 'oD 



U 



< 



W 



^■ 



pL, 



U 



^,«^-"^ 



o 



2 







SOUTH OF SUEZ 

more, contribute to the renown and lure of Zan- 
zibar. 

Whether it is a Hindu wedding ghstening 
with tinsel, coloured lights, and mock armour, 
with frightened boy bridegroom and smug, pat- 
ronising sire ; or a visit to the great Mahometan 
club in a grove of mangoes by a beach on 
the outskirts of town, where adolescent Hin- 
dus ape the manners of Eton and Harrow on 
the cricket pitch, — "Oah, well played, sarel 
Bowled ! Bowled, sare !" — or an expedition with 
Mahomet, darting in and out among the stately 
dhows from Muscat looking over Hkely bargains 
in teakwood tonnage, or some adventurous quest 
down dark, whispering alleys at night with a 
companion still rolhng on his sea legs — each page 
contained a new story for me. But always the 
moral was the same, and the moral was Ixion's : 
"Adventures are to the Adventurous." 
The hf e of the bazaar is a peculiar thing. To 
the philosopher it is mostly very broad human 
comedy; but occasionally there is presented some 
tragic circimistance, violent and inexplicable, 
that leaves a lingering memory of colour and 
flame and troubled questioning. The inexpli- 
cable fascinates but never satisfies. 

[ 163 1 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

For instance, one day there was a hubbub in 
the bazaar — rifle shots, banging doors, shouts, a 
loud rising hum — and this is what occurred : 

Two sepoys, coming away from Beyt-el- 
Ajaib, the palace of the Sultan, struck by a sud- 
den madness, turned into the bazaar. At the 
shop of Damoder Jerab they found the inoffen- 
sive Khoja manager sitting on a stool, calm and 
contented. One of the sepoys calmly raised his 
rifle and shot the unsuspecting man in his fat 
stomach. . . . 

Instantly the bazaar was in a quivering panic. 
Shutters went up with a clatter; the brass-stud- 
ded doors closed with muffled bangs; and all in 
the alleys scampered to shelter like frightened 
rabbits. A wet Banian — ^brother of beasts and 
bugs, who would have thought it as great a crime 
to kill a rat as his own grandmother — ^trying to 
slip unseen down a dark, moist alleyway, palpi- 
tating with terror, was discovered by the sardonic 
gaze of the sepoy, and a second bullet flew. It 
struck the Banian in the chest, and knocked him 
with a faint whimper into a muddied drain. 

There were stirrings, whisperings, choked 
cries, tinkle of silver and rattle of brasses behind 
the dark walls. In an instant the narrow, wet 

[164] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

alleyways were deserted save for a few old men 
and women, too stunned to move quickly, and 
some children, lost in the swift panic. Four 
women, coming to an upper window to look 
down into the stirring bazaar, made a pretty, 
colourful picture under a Byzantine arch with a 
drab background. They were terrified with 
anxiety for their children ; but one of the sepoys' 
bullets scattered them like bits of bright plu- 
mage. 

Ali Bhanji, who was of course at hand, saw 
his child in the street and rushed out to draw him 
to safety just as another small boy, seeing all 
doors closing about him, flung himself against 
Dharsey's great brass-studded portal, crying 
out: 

"Mohammed Ali Dharsey, open the door! 
Open the door, Mohammed Ali Dharsey! Help 
me ! Open the door ! . . ." 

While the little fellow beat frantically at the 
black, carved door, behind which the merchants 
wrung their hands helplessly, the sepoy turned 
with a flashing smile and shot him. 

When the two sepoys had expended their am- 
munition, except for a bullet apiece, they went 
on a short distance, conversing calmly together, 

[165] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

till they came to a convenient harasa at the door 
of a shop kept by an old woman. They told her 
to shut her door, and when she had done this 
and the street was clear, sitting down a short 
distance apart, they raised their rifles and fired 
simultaneously at each other, both falhng mor- 
tally wounded. ... So these two hillmen, born 
and reared in some remote hamlet perhaps on 
the snowy slopes of the Himalayas, when the 
blood madness came upon them, found their 
deaths in the steaming bazaars of Zanzibar. . . . 

"Phew," said Ah, mopping his brow as he 
finished giving me his version. "How very near 
you not can able make business to-day! Sup- 
pose I deaded! No broker, no shauri! Eh, 
bwana? . . .''■' 

And after consideration, I do think the Head 
Office would have been a bit querulous at any 
unwarranted delay caused thereby. 

The man I most hked was Hadji Mahomet 
bin Ali, a pure-blooded Arab from the Yeman. 
There was no compromise about the Hadji; he 
had a solid, downright character, bluff, direct 
manner, formed his opinions after brief con- 
sideration, and acted with decision. He was an 
Jiamal contractor, engaged in supplying steve- 

[166] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

dores, hamals, and women to sort and clean 
cloves and copra, drag the stuff in carts from 
end to end of the town, load it in barges, and 
stow it in the holds of the big ships swinging in 
the roads. To carry on this work successfully, 
he had to have keen perception, initiative, and a 
profound knowledge of the native labourer. 

Often at night when the "most costly roof in 
East Africa" suddenly became porous under a 
beating rain, threatening the destruction of thou- 
sands of sacks of cloves, I would send a mes- 
senger — old, black, blear-eyed BelalH, in a night- 
gown, sandals and red tarhush, Belalli, a pen- 
sioner, and once about the best ivory expert on 
the Black Continent — I would send him search- 
ing for Mahomet bin Ali, scurrying through the 
drenching downpour as anxious over the cloves 
as a parvenu over a string of pearls. . , . Pres- 
ently into the darkness of my room would come 
the Hadjij, silent and grave, his black beard drip- 
ping moisture, his smouldering eyes steady imder 
the sopping turban, the hilt of his dagger gleam- 
ing with the wet. 

''Maharahah!" he would greet me. "What 
is the trouble now, efendif\ , . And within 
twenty minutes the big godowns would be re- 

[ 167 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

verberating with the shouts and songs of coolies 
strugghng in the glow of huge blazing lights to 
clear the threatened cloves. 

Whenever I ran into the Hadji at the Clove 
Market, I spent many pleasant moments with 
him discussing the world and its people. Look- 
ing through the overflowing godowns out to the 
open bay where the great three-masted teak- 
wood dhows congregated from every corner of 
the Indian Ocean, and the rusted iron steam- 
ships, worn with wartime's trafficking, tugged 
wearily at their chains, and the small battered 
fishermen's craft and outriggers from the main- 
land drifted about like chance-blown autumn 
leaves, we swung our heels under a hamal cart 
and let the world pass in review. 

We both knew Arab and Jewish traders in 
Aden and along the Somali Coast, and had deal- 
ings with Parsi merchants of Bombay. Ma- 
homet had been a veritable Sinbad, and told his 
tales as the story-tellers of old Baghdad told 
theirs : 

"There lived in the Hedjaz a merchant who 
was my uncle ; and when I was a boy, my father 
sent me to him to undertake a trip to Mogadishe. 
This voyage we carried camels to trade with the 

[ 168 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Somalis for goats, hides, bullocks, gum copal, 
kart, or whatever else might offer a profit in 
Aden or Medina. . . . 

"You have not been to Muscat! I myself 
went there on my fourth trip, to pur2hase dates 
and rugs. . . . 

"Ah, effendij I thought I had travelled. But 
you, you who are half my age, have seen twice 
as much." 

I suggest deprecatingly: "One man may 
travel far and see nothing; while another, sit- 
ting in his shop door, sees all the world pass be- 
fore him. To travel does not always mean to 
learn, Hadji" 

"By AUah, that is true. Look!" 

And he indicates a little, weary, home-sick 
group, squatting by the shelter of a wall, gaz- 
ing out to sea, or stealing curious glances at the 
all-important Indians and the black Swahilis 
shuffling and lounging past. They are Arabs 
from Oman, three youths and a girl. She is un- 
veiled and has the wild, clean-featured beauty 
of the desert, with large, liquid eyes, and a skin 
that is warm and fresh ; while the youths, comely 
and hthe, are plainly anxious to be off again. 
One glance tells us they have come in a dhow 

[ 169 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

from the Persian Gulf, picking their way among 
the stars across the waste of the Indian Ocean, 
trusting to Allah and every chance wind that 
blew. . , . 

Envy rises in me. I too should like to sail 
those seas, master of my dhow, and a plaything 
of the winds — ^to take my chance with Kismet on 
the open seas, while my heart leaped with life, 
and my tongue sang songs as old as Hafiz: 

"By Allah ! wild with love I flame ; 

And he who loves is ne'er to blame! 

Drink, mdhahuhie, drink!'* 

1 suggest this to the Hadji, and he smites his 
thigh: "Allah! Allah! We wiU do this, ef- 
fendi! You and I, we will ..." 

But I already foresee my departure in a big, 
rattling, lop-sided transport packed with blacks 
in khaki, with web kits stuifed with cartridges. 
But some time, Hadji, some time! . . . 

Besides these three, there were my insolent 
black overseer, Adbaraka, always short of 
money, haughty with the women, among whom 
he imagined himself an Arab, yet proud of his 
work; and dear old Belalli, shuffling, mumbling, 
laughing Belalli, gentle and anxious as a grand- 

[170] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

mother, and loyal as a dog; and Ali, my boy, 
afflicted with elephantiasis, dragging a foot the 
size of a gate post, till I gave him a hut and took 
on his rogue of a brother in his place ; and Bimzi, 
chief of the Jiamals, with the body of a Hercules 
and the good-nature of a puppy, despite a gash 
across his face from ear to chin — a memento of 
happy, care-free days in Muscat. . . . They 
were all good children, and gave sufficient anx- 
iety and amusement to fit every mood. 

Never was there a tedious moment from the 
hour of singing dawn when I awakened to the 
greeting of the dusky damsels who brought the 
water for my bath, their broad splayed feet flip- 
flopping on the stone floor, their eyes rolling 
roguishly under the dripping vessels poised on 
their kinky heads, the great red and yellow but- 
tons in their stretched ears gleaming against 
vast expanses of bare brown skin, their flimsy, 
coloured hodrunks drawn tight about their sway- 
ing bodies, and their betel-stained gums showing 
in broad grins as each called in turn : 

'^JambOj hwana! Peace, master! Jamho! 
Jamho! JamhoT, . . This, and the warm light 
pouring through the arches, the twittering of the , 
love-birds on the roofs, the distant songs of boat- 

[171] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

men swinging to their oars, the call of bugles 
across the waters, a banging of doors and bolts, 
and httle bursts of shrill laughter from the 
women in the godown below ; and Ah, apologetic 
because of his big foot, bearing a tray of pine- 
apples, oranges, bananas, and mangoes, still 
cool with the dew of night — all indicate 
dawn, and another day. . . . And thence on- 
ward each hour is filled with its appropriate ad- 
venture, imtil at last night comes and crowns 
them all. Oh, the nights of Zanzibar — ^wild 
nights, weird nights, nights full of charm and 
harmony ! 

The old days are passing when an adventure 
in the dark bazaars ended often in the "hough I" 
of a dagger struck home, the thud of a falling 
body, the broken sigh of a defeated soul. It 
may still end so; but the intriguing mind 
finds other distractions, and long-cloaked figures 
crowned in high red tarhushes keep the law — 
within radius of the glow of arc-lights. Besides, 
there are sufficient diversions beyond the walls 
of harims, and the divans of the gamblers — ^the 
coffee stalls seU pink and yellow sodawater, 
bottled by Hindus; electric hghts make bright 
spots about the suhJis where farmer and fisher- 

[172] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

man dump their wares, and romance still sm*- 
vives. One day I saw a small fish, which a 
fisherman had sold for seven picCj retailed for 
seven thousand rupees because it was discovered 
that Allah had inscribed its scales with a sacred 
phrase from the Koran! On the edge of the 
town broad, pahn-fringed football fields are Ut- 
tered with youths in many-coloured garbs hke 
chips upon a green baize table; and under the 
protection of a grove of palms there rises a can- 
vas temple, reared for the great god of Mirth. 

Every night within this temple — where 
gather wrinkled Arab sailors from Muscat or 
Madagascar or red-faced, burly English sailors 
from where the Severn flows ; black askaris from 
the Ulogoro hills; bearded sepoys from the 
Punjaub; hilarious Tommies from Battersea; 
precise Parsis in linen-dusters, with round, 
varnished hats; squatting, half -naked Banians 
with loin-cloths tucked between their knees; 
Goanese dressed hke mid- Victorians and speak- 
ing Portuguese; Swahilis in red tarhushes and 
white hanzas and immeasurable grins across their 
black faces; natives of Seychelles; aboriginal 
Wahadimu; Khojas; and Japanese; old, young, 
and middle-aged, their children, their mistresses, 

[ 173 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

and giggling painted ones, coquettishly rolling 
their eyes behind their yashmaks j or brazenly un- 
veiled — all, all wait with the same emotions the 
coming of the god. . . . And the high priest, 
standing on a chair, waves for silence. 

He is sightless in one eye, his cratered face 
indicating that small-pox was to blame. Old 
blue-and-white striped pantaloons and well-worn 
sandals, a discarded tweed waistcoat, a dirty, 
badly rolled turban, set him off and lend dignity 
to the impressively raised hands as he makes his 
announcements in a cracked voice in four lan- 
guages, ending with Kis-swahili and English : 

"Juma-na-moja, watu wote watacuja hopat 
Shahli Shaplin! ! ! Cheha-clieha-cheha! . . . 
Satterday night, Larf-larf-larf-larf ! . . ." 

And the babel of languages suddenly becomes 
harmony. Each understands all; and all under- 
stand to the depths the great roar that shakes 
the temple walls when a figure — mainly Boots, a 
Stick, a Little Bowler Hat, a Moustache, and a 
Vitalising Spark — suddenly appears on the wall, 
trips, and lands on its chin amid Cahfornian 
scenery. . . . 

This is the common meeting ground for all the 
world. 

[174] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

At other times I must play many parts, for 
it's bad for a man to neglect his own; and I 
never do. The world for me is a three-ringed 
circus, and myself a boy who sees each ring, yet 
somehow misses nothing. 

I spent decorous nights at the Club, drinking 
Child's cocktails in emulation of a man whom I 
regarded with whimsical respect, — ^the same who 
was instrumental in laying ten miles of toy rail- 
road along the coral beach, through the crowded 
bazaar, and among the palms to the toy village 
of Bu-bu-bu, — ^but avoiding the bridge tables 
where liver patients tested their symptoms; and 
dined with boastful httle traders, or fed-up^ 
soldiers, or blase administrators; or spent hours 
over ancient periodicals from London. Some- 
times I dined in the uniform of Piccadilly with 
People of Importance and discussed high topics 
cleverly. More often I followed my natural in- 
clinations, and made merry in neighbouring 
Messes, or my own, where, gathered about 
pianos, we sang sentimental ditties and mourn- 
ful lays. Our favourite haunt was the home of 
a Man from Detroit. 

The first floor of the great barrack where he 
lived was filled with oil and rare petroleum 

[176] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

products. But on the third floor were his rooms, 
littered with delicately carved bits of ivory on 
ebony stands, old armour and rare weapons, lace 
and silk, tasteful pictures, and a piano; while in 
a neighbouring room were all the essential ad- 
juncts to conviviality. According to the oc- 
casion, whether a birthday or one of those fetes 
that bring back memories of a land obscured by 
distance, we partook of liqueur cocktails, mint 
juleps, or champagne punch, and made the 
starry welkin tremble with songs of long trails 
and cosy little homes. They were quaint parties. 
"Bob" and "Ascot," the former red-faced and 
grinning, with fresh, curly hair tousled over 
merry blue eyes, the latter tanned and gloomy of 
aspect, though possessed of a sombre devil — 
both fresh from the rocking bridges of their re- 
spective commands, little storm-tossed sister 
ships, inseparables, who poked their noses in 
every bay or delta along the Germanee coast, 
hunting for trouble and finding it; "Catchy 
Boy," with young and smiling face, quizzical, 
sun-bleached blue eyes, and hair prematurely 
grey from nocturnal jungle tete-a-tetes with truc- 
ulent Germanees, unconverted black men, and 
inquiring beasts of predatory kinds; the Little 

[ 176 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Trader with the big voice, who, in serious moods, 
shook the markets on flying visits from Tana- 
narive in Madagascar to Kisumu on Victoria 
Nyanza; the Man from Detroit at the piano, 
smihng, debonair, large of girth, and big of 
heart, with "the latest" (two years old) at his 
finger-tips — the group of us would hang arm-in- 
arm about the piano, heads thrust forward, eyes 
straining to read the words, while Bob howled: 

"For . . . just . . . one . . . day-an'-one-night 
You . . . were . . . muh . . . dream-uv-deelight 
Till . . . you . . . fay-ded-away 
With-thuh-light-uv-thuh-day. ..." 

All heads would come up with a jerk, faces 
turn raptly to the twinkhng sky, mouths gape 
wide in one simultaneous movement, and a 
melancholy wail tremble on the balmy air : 

"Ohn . . . Lake . . . Champlain!". . . 

Other nights were not musical nights — ^nights 
when we played fox-and-geese in our pyjamas 
through the dark, slimy, labyrinthine alleyways 
at three ack emma, or scaled forbidden walls by 
means of drain pipes, or stormed each other's 
citadels under a barrage of soda-water bottles, 

[ 177 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

pineapples, mangoes, oranges, buckets, and 
lumps of coral, which, crashing on corrugated- 
iron roofs, raised unappreciated din. Again, 
there were other nights, pohte nights when we 
supped and danced with propriety. 

One such night we spent at the Bishop's house. 
Under a soaring moon, with soft, magnoHa- 
scented breezes blowing from the whispering sea, 
and the Sultan's black band filling the air with 
the languorous strains of tropic music, the stri- 
dency of hfe seemed to pass away. Drifting 
across the dancing space with an attractive, 
dreamy-eyed damsel resting in my arms, and the 
notes of La Palomaj so soft they mingled with 
the murmur of the waves, and the wind stirring 
through the palm fronds and laughing amid the 
waxy leaves of the clove trees, beating tenderly 
on my receptive heart, these, I felt, were mo- 
ments that gave life its sweetness. Piquant 
thrills are for other times. 

Yet as night blew on, and rain-drops began to 
spit from a black, heaving sky, and the crowded 
frolickers gradually vanished in rickshaws and 
quaint vehicles through the dark shadows of 
the surrounding gi'oves, there came a cry from 
out a dark lane. Catchy Boy and I, arriving 

[178] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

together from different points, discovered an 
old-fashioned closed carriage ditched in the 
bushes, with a pair of overturned horses flounder- 
ing and struggling in their traces. Black, terri- 
fied footmen in scarlet coats jumped about with 
flickering link-lights. A beam disclosed a silk- 
clad leg thrust through the shattered glass of the 
door; and a charming face, flushed and dis- 
hevelled, lifted itself from the wreckage, exclaim- 
ing petulantly: 

"Damme ! This is a pretty pickle !" 

Catchy Boy and I crossed glances in the dim 
light, and struck by the same thought, he drew 
an imaginary snuff-box, and exclaimed softly: 

*'Zounds, me lord! Sure 'tis no proper night 
for wenches to take the road from Bath without 
escort.". . . 

So we delivered them from the ditch and set 
them safe upon their way. 

Peruque's dance I remember chiefly because 
of an incident. It was a dance and supper in 
Victoria Gardens, where the ladies of the Sul- 
tan's Jiarim formerly bathed. It was a charm- 
ing affair, with the sole contretemps of a baby 
hippopotamus blundering in among the tables 
and chairs and disporting on the dance-floor until 

[179] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

persuaded to leave by fifteen determined natives 
with ropes. . . . 

But the best nights of all were at home, when 
the babbling city had sunk reluctantly into 
silence. 

My huge old Arab house, had the reputation 
of being haunted. Unfortunately, I cannot 
prove this; but every night at two in the morn- 
ing I awakened and lay for many minutes listen- 
ing to the few faint sounds that tapped musically 
upon the bell of silence : the everlasting whispers 
and laughter of the waves upon the beach, the 
tap-tap-tap of death's-head beetles in the herities 
of the ceiling, the rustling movement of rats, the 
clear silver tinkle of ships' bells in the harbom*, 
the unexpected rattle of a chain, far off the 
plaintive shriek of a lemur, the stirring of palm 
fronds outside my window. Tm-ning my head, 
I could look out through the porticos across the 
water, silvery under the moon, with red and 
white and green lights glowing from the grey 
shadows of ships. A pale, brooding moon some- 
times gazed at me from behind a fan of palms; 
and then ghosts would truly steal about me, 
tender, ministering ghosts — memories of other 
days, and dim dreams that may yet come true. 

[180] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

In their arms I'd sink again to sleep. . . . 

Stretching behind the venal Town, which is 
huddled upon a spit of land, the rolling, em- 
bowered hills rise high and higher to the north- 
ward upon their coral base, until, near the little 
village of Mkokotoni at the northern end of the 
island, an outcropping of genuine strata has 
lifted itself several hundred feet above the blue 
seas. 

Never have I seen a more beautiful or richer 
island, except perhaps moody Oahu. Rolling, 
verdant hills and gentle valleys with sweet, clear 
water and a teeming wealth of fruit and pakn, 
broad, curving bays upon whose dazzling coral 
beaches the iridescent waters toss a feathery 
white fringe of surf, make a setting for the 
ruins of old castles, smothered under all-embrac- 
ing creepers, and the deep -arched Arab houses 
on the sJiambas. 

The ruins tell tales of the days when the black 
Zang potentates yielded sovereignty of the seas 
to the questing Portuguese who rounded the 
Cape in the fifteenth century ; and of the later 
days of dark, passionate struggle when the 
Imams of Muscat shattered the might of Portu- 
gal from Mogadishe to Kilwa, a small port now, 

[ 181 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

but then a place of many mosques. With the 
passing of the day of Tipoo Tib, that power, too, 
has since passed away; for the present swarthy, 
black-bearded Sultan, though he smiles sardoni- 
cally as he rides quietly forth to take the evening 
air, has no illusions as to the extent of his might. 
For the power of the Say ids has now passed. 
. . . Bob and Ascot and Catchy Boy and myself 
— we now uphold the Baj ! . . . 

You would not think it to see us spinning 
along narrow, coralline lanes hedged with groves 
of cocoanut and glistening, fragrant clove trees 
— ^the Man from Detroit asleep in the hmousine, 
making a pillow for Bob and Ascot, who snore 
softly, each on a shoulder, lulled by the hum of 
the motor, the soporific fragrance of the air, the 
soothing motion of the car as it dips and swerves 
and soars, and the rush of balminess that pours 
about us; while the slim Goanese driver keeps 
his eyes on the road, and I let my dreaming gaze 
wander afield. 

These lanes are traversed only by swaying 
bullock-carts, sleepy jack-asses, white, trotting 
Muscat donkeys, and Swahilis on foot carrying 
on their heads large green baskets woven with 
palm and overflowing with fruit. Occasionally 

[ 182 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

striking hoofs awaken echoes, and an Arab, 
mounted on a blooded horse, conies dancing by, 
gravely saluting as his steed curvets and rears, 
maintaining with dignity the ancient principle 
that the mounted man is the superior man. This 
is a shamha owner — one of the old stock of 
Arabs who have divided the island into great 
plantations where they cultivate the clove and 
cocoanut, and such things of lesser importance 
as the aloe. They were great aristocrats in the 
days of slaves, but now that the SwahiHs are 
nominally independent, it's a different matter. 
. . . Greasy Hindus, squatting in the bazaars, 
advance money on prospective crops — and the 
Arab, who cares nothing for to-morrow, is grace- 
fully yielding his estates to a more wily civihsa- 
tion. 

Along the roads are little villages, clusters 
of huts with walls of mud plastered on inter- 
twined pole withes, with roofs of palm thatch. 
Screens stand about on which hang manioc dry- 
ing in the sun; and on broad reed makandas 
under the trees the drying meat of the cocoanut 
shrinks from the shell to form copra; while the 
last fragrant pistils of the clove crop are spread 
on mats nearby. By some of the huts are 

[183] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

harasas, or mud platforms on which Hindu 
traders lounge, trading odd bits of tin, beads, 
cigarettes, and sweets, for cloves and copra 
filched by the native from his Arab master. 

Naked children, a few chickens and guinea 
fowls, a goat or two, and occasionally a bullock, 
wander about the huts or tumble over each other 
under the shelter of umbrageous mango trees 
littering the ground with succulent fruit. The 
lanes are hned with trees — mango, banyan, palm 
(the courtly cocoanut; the betel, dainty and 
proud as an aigrette; and the sensible sago), 
spreading jack-fruit, clumps of bamboo, and 
groves of clove dotted with pink clusters of 
aromatic mother-of-clove. Through the clean, 
dark-green foliage of the cloves, or over grey, 
crumbled walls overlaid with soft yellow, red, 
and green moss and lichen, peep red-tiled or 
iron-grey roofs and the curves of deep arches 
where the Arabs keep their wonted state. 

The native Swahilis of the plantations are 
still only semi-independent as they depend on 
the shambas for work and wages, while the gov- 
ernment regulates their movements. But with 
a little cash, a panga to cut cane, and a hoe to 
scratch a patch of soil, they live in plenty and 

[184] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

contentment. Juicy pineapples and mealy ba- 
nanas grow wild and are regarded as weeds on 
the shamhaSy while the mango drops its succulent 
fruit broadcast, and orange trees scatter their 
golden crop by the roadside. . . . 

Over brimming brooks, around emerald hill- 
sides, by the side of dazzhng bays, along the edge 
of bluffs from whose heights we can see the 
fisher-craft darting about like water spiders on 
the calm surface, we come to tempting spots — 
Mkokotoni and Chwaka, where there are a few 
bungalows. Here we picnic and bathe. It is 
delicious water, and to bathe in it is like flinging 
yourself into the arms of amorous Dawn. . . . 

I have often swum at night, too, far out among 
the vessels in the harbour of Zanzibar Town,^ 
every stroke weaving a garment of phosphorus 
about me, and in the pleasure of the swim forget- 
ting all too soon the lesson I learned from Aden's 
sand sharks. . . . 

To the glories of this island the European 
seems blind and indifferent. He plays golf and 
tennis conventionally at Mnazi Moja, the sports 
club on the edge of town ; but beyond this, unless 
he is a soldier and mustj he will not venture 
except to picnic for a few hours. He does not 

[185] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

seem able to tear himself away from the pathetic 
prattle and tame delights of the Club, or prox- 
imity to the Resident whose favours are like fickle 
fortune, or, perhaps, the companionship of others 
of their kind and dalhance among the few white 
ladies whom the fate of their husbands has drawn 
to the island. 

Argumentatively, I once made this opinion 
public. 

"My dear chap, don't be silly," said the Doc- 
tor, glaring over a whiskey-and-soda. "White 
men can't stand it — ^malaria — dysentery — fever 
— damn rot." 

I pointed out that as a soldier I had lived 
weeks at a time in the country, in its most dis- 
reputable and deadly parts, and had grown heavy 
on it. 

"That may be," said a young administrator, 
"but you forget that this is only a protectorate. 
We must look after the interests of the present 
land-owners, you know. We can't take their 
property from them. . . ." 

"But Hindu usurers may?" I suggested. "No. 
The trouble is this. You've got a nice little 
island here, and you all have nice little jobs, and 
you don't trouble your little heads a single 

[186] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

thought more than the exigencies of the service 
demand. You don't want to popularise the 
island because you couldn't stand official com- 
petition. You've got ice-plants, a ten-mile 
railroad, soda-water establishments, electric 
lights. . . ." 

"Well, dash it, after all, that's something." " 

"It is," I admit — ^blandly, I expect. "But all 
those things were started by traders, mostly 
American. . . ." 

"Well, why don't you go in for planting?" 

There he had me. 

I looked from the balcony out across the bay, 
at the monitor squatting in the roads, at a black 
EUerman freighter unloading into red barges, 
at a plume of smoke on the horizon, at the clouds 
banked low over the African mainland. I was 
particularly fascinated by that bank of distant 
clouds. The rumbling of the vessels and the din 
of the bazaar rose to my ears, filling them with 
a dull buzzing, while I seemed to smell the heady 
smell of a ship's hold. . . . Suddenly I knew 
that in another month this island would be but 
a memory. . . . 

"Ah, well, the island is yours," I said. "There 
are other things for me to do; and after all I 

[187] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

am somewhat of a visitor. ... I have seen it; 
I know it pretty well; and I like it. But . . . 
toujours there is something else to be done first." 
Tou jours the open road and a free heel; tou- 
jours a flowing sheet, and the long slope of the 
seas. • • • 



[188] 





-J) i^i' ^^''-'^^^^^^l^l^^»1raAl.^mS%^ 



The Wilderness Patrol 

DO you remember one day under the white 
tents of Dar-es-Salaam — "the Port of 
Peace" — when a scorching sun poured down too 
great a heat for drills, and guard-mount was a 
sweltering ordeal, and the hospital regulations 
gave you one of your rare and brief opportu- 
nities to visit us in our meagre camp, that you 
asked me about a patrol I took with The Com- 
missioner beyond the Escarpment? . . . There 
was too much else to talk about then, so I 
couldn't give you much of an idea of the coun- 
try. Catchy Boy and Bwana Poor had so much 
better to talk about; and The Commissioner, 
sober, was too great a distraction. Besides, as 
I remember, I was pretty well fed up with the 
bush. . . . But when, at last, they slung you in 
a stretcher aboard ship, and you sailed in doubt 
for England and home, I gathered together some 
scraps of paper and jotted down notes of that 
particular safari to remind you of old days, an 
old pal, and a hot and thunderous land that 

[189] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

nearly broke us both, yet left us richer far than 
ever wealth could do. . . . It is just a hap- 
hazard account without much regard for chro- 
nology or tense; and much there is that you can 
fill in, for, of course, the most of it is left out I 
... It was a war safari j naturally; but there is 
practically no talk of scrapping. The flurries 
of war we may always have with us; but the 
quivering wilderness, the great horned monsters 
brooding in the heat haze of primordial times, 
and the elemental savages who gibber in pre- 
historic gloom, are not eternal. ... A few sen- 
tences may serve to bring up pleasant though 
melancholy memories — ^things which we must dis- 
cuss at greater length and in another mood if we 
ever foregather again. . . . 

When we struck a bearing, then, across my 
watch, and located om-selves by an angle drawn 
from the dim shoulder of Essimingor in the west 
and the white crest of Kilima Njaro floating in 
the heat haze a hundred and twenty miles to the 
northeast, we focussed our attention on the map. 

"It's wrong," said The Commissioner at last 
stubbornly. "We should have found water an 
hour ago." Pointing to the tiny blue pencil 
marks that indicate water-holes — " 'Sometimes 

[190] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

dry,' " he quoted scornfully. Then with a hoarse 
burst of spleen: "Every blasted one has been dry 
for ninety-eight years!" 

Certainly the only evidence of water had been 
sun-scorched rock and baked mud, cut and scat- 
tered by the spoor of innumerable wild creatures. 

The water-bottles and chaguls were empty. 
We had covered nearly fifty miles along a dusty, 
pebble-strewn trail fringing the arid Massai 
Steppe, and were footsore and dangerously dry. 
Before us was the prospect of another broad, 
waterless stretch, and the possibility of our little 
column breaking up. 

I lifted my eyes anxiously to the resting 
column of askaris squatting by the trail, rifles 
across their knees, or sitting upright gazing cu- 
riously at The Commissioner and myself; while 
the weary porters, stretching to the rear for al- 
most half a mile, lolled in their stained blankets, 
impassive as cattle in the dust. Old Sergeant 
Kombo, leaning on his rifle, gazed fiercely across 
the hot, straw-coloured hills of the rolling 
Steppe; while my orderly, Ali bin Sudi, looked 
with dreamy eyes at the waiting line of askaris 
with the humorous cynicism of one who has often 
faced death. 

[ 191 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

The Commissioner rose uncomfortably and put 
the whistle to his cracked lips. The askaris fell 
in stiffly; the porters took up their fifty-pound 
loads with low grunts; the men of the baggage 
and rear guards cursed listlessly, calling out, 
"Funga! Funga! Ke-lowse up!" — and the 
long single line shuffled forward in a low cloud 
of dust. 

Ah, by my side, suddenly touched my arm and 
pointed with his chin to the westward. 

"Kongoni, efendir 

Floating in the haze, a series of impalpable 
spots moved along the base of a distant kopje. 
This was sufficient to indicate water; and a half 
hour later we came to Msuakini, and found a 
pool among some sere sedges. It was slimy, and 
it stunk, resembling nothing more than a slough 
in a pig-sty, for an endless variety of wild 
creatures had wallowed in it. Our unspoken re- 
lief at having occupied the place without a fight, 
however, and the craving of our withered cor- 
puscles, overwhelmed the most remote repug- 
nance. 

Pickets were posted; fires lighted; a kongoni 
I had shot was cut up and distributed; and the 
camp settled comfortably for the night. The 

[192] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Commissioner and I, lolling in our camp chairs, 
discussed possibilities until the stars lighted up, 
the shadows closed in upon us, and the veldt 
awoke to the throbbing grunt of the hunting 
lion. . . . 

The next evening, after passing through a 
belt of scrub bush and dom palm, we debouched 
on the Mbugwe plain, flat as a pancake with 
the great Escarpment rising crust-Uke over two 
thousand feet above its western edge. The sur- 
prised natives, seizing their spears and driving 
their cattle before them, fled into the bush. All 
and a couple of other askari diplomats were sent 
to reassiu-e them ; and presently, since we did not 
attack, they stole back, one by one, and their 
square, low, basket-like huts began to stir with 
life. 

When we had settled ourselves by the camp- 
fires, the sultani himself came doubtfully forward 
with an escort of naked warriors bringing gifts 
of mtama meal, smoky milk, and eggs. He was 
soon assured of our friendship and good inten- 
tions, and squatting before us with red blanket 
drawn about his shoulders, gesticulating with his 
feathery spears, he retailed the Jiabari of his 
villages, while his chiefs and runners on either 

[ 193 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

hand nodded confirmation and chewed the dates 
we gave them. 

A Germanee column, he said, had recently 
entered the district, occupied the neighbouring 
village of Madukani, ravaged the country-side, 
and marched up the Escarpment and away into 
the primeval forests to the north of Lake Eyassi. 
They showed us trophies. This man had killed 
a cook. Others had tracked and speared askaris 
in the bush. Another had lain in the grass and 
waited for the ashari who had murdered his 
brother, and when he drew near, had risen up 
and plunged a spear through him in full sight 
of the German camp ... In the end the Ger- 
manees had been obliged to use their machine 
guns. ... 

With daylight we marched to the place where 
a scattered collection of huts had taken the name 
of Madukani — "at the shops" — ^without further 
information of the enemy. But here we met 
B — , the Assistant Pohtical Officer, who had 
come down to see us from his red, castle-hke homa 
stuck up on the roof of the Escarpment, He 
had a handful of askaris and a Boer ex-sergeant 
to control them; and with these retainers he 

[194] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

ruled a district of over twenty thousand square 
miles. 

Striding in front of a weather-beaten, angu- 
lar horse, the A. P. O. came along the trail. His 
shorts disclosed a pair of long, tan; sinewy legs; 
his sleeveless tunic hung from him in patched 
folds; a peak had been sewed to his khaki- 
covered tarbushj and this was pulled down over 
his eyes. Behind him in a red blanket stalked 
his gun-bearer, an outlawed Wattaturu chief, an 
exceptionally tall and handsome man with the 
features and dignity of an Abyssinian, while 
at his heels trotted a grinning Massai child, 
carrying a shot-gun and clad in a cast-off 
double-breasted waistcoat which hung to his 
knees. 

With this picturesque escort we entered the 
hamlet. 

I took up my headquarters in a grass banda. 
We then made a division of forces so that The 
Commissioner and the A. P. O. could ascend the 
Escarpment and endeavour to locate the German 
force to the northward, while I held the plain 
to keep the enemy from the water-holes, to check 
any force from the south, and to break up what- 

[195] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

ever detachments The Commissioner might suc- 
ceed in driving off the plateau. . . . 

The days that followed were full of activity 
and unending delight — a period of benevolent 
autocracy almost as good as the most excited 
imaginings of boyhood. 

My palace was the grass-thatched handa at 
which insects perpetually nibbled; my capital, a 
scattering handful of mud and thatch huts where 
pioneer Swahilis and a few lost Hindus traded 
beads, wire, and cotton goods for hides, ivory, 
and cattle; my domain spread away into the in- 
definable limits of the Massai Steppe on the 
one hand, and to the base of the Great Escarp- 
ment on the other ; while constantly I was stimu- 
lated by the piquant thrill that all this was 
threatened by a daring and desperate enemy, 
and was mine to hold. 

Aside from such normal activities as working 
out patrols, ambushes, and scouting parties, 
and locating and examining tactical points, my 
Scotch sergeant, "Robbie," and I were kept 
busily engaged in drilling our men, maintaining 
discipline, collecting and forwarding supplies, 
and tending the sick. These latter included pa- 
tients suffering from pneimionia, fever, dysen- 

[196] 




I* 




^ 



P-I 



H-1 



H 



> 



H 



O 



O 



o 




SOUTH OF SUEZ 

tery, ophthalmia, and a couple of bad wounds. 
Runners and akidas came to me daily with ru- 
mours and reports, or to hold shauris; and these, 
squatted in a semicircle about my door, would 
wait for horn's before opening an oblique discus- 
sion that never by any chance disclosed the real 
object of the visit until the last possible moment. 

I bought cattle from the headmen, who duly 
tried to cheat me, but my askaris were Mussul- 
mans and invariably disclosed the trick by de- 
livering into my presence various bits of diseased 
tripe, bloated kidneys, and empurpled lungs. 
Ensued considerable matata when I summoned 
the akidas, and they endeavoured to placate me 
with the subtle reasoning of soothing gifts, in- 
cluding everything from honey beer to wives 
from among the famed beauties of Mbugwe. 
Having seen fair specimens of the beauties, I 
held my own in face of these offers. My moods, 
however, were frequently softened by reports 
that came in of lion, rhino, and elephant, spoored 
and sighted upon the slopes of the Escarpment, 
and leopards making themselves nuisances in the 
villages. 

Once I went on a Hon hunt with the sultani, 
armed only with spears and shield. Beyond this 

[ 197 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

I had little time for shooting. But one day a 
villager came to me with an account of a leopard 
who visited the huts each night. Ali treated the 
tale with contempt; but the shenzi outdid him- 
self, until at last, having nothing else to do, I 
decided to visit the hamlet myself. 

It was about seven miles away, and the path 
cut through a vast papyrus swamp threaded with 
deep, smooth-running streams of delicious water. 
The sun was decHning, and the Escarpment 
swelling out with shadows. 

In the waning light this swamp is very beauti- 
ful. Birds of rare plumage soar above it, or 
float on its surface; while some, like daubs of 
colour upon a blue canvas, dart among the reeds. 
Clucking, gurgling, whistling, or, like the golden- 
crested crane, uttering melancholy cries, they fill 
the air with strange music. Water lilies large 
and small and of many hues float in the open 
spaces, and an aromatic perfume faintly pervades 
the fresh atmosphere. It is the heart of Africa, 
and a parliament of birds assembles here — ^the 
scarlet "Hghtning bird" from the South, the 
black ibis and the grey from the sedges of the 
Nile, homely old storks from the chimney-pots 
of Alsace-Lorraine, the angelic egret, gruffly 

[198] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

quacking flocks of duck and geese, dainty little 
water-birds so light they seem to run upon the 
water, and waltzing swallows who come from 
God alone knows where. Surprised water- 
buck, whistling with alarm, leap behind screens 
of papyrus; elephants at night plunge and 
wallow in the lush sedges; and to complete the 
picture, the Wambugwe, in single file, with 
gourds on their backs filled with curdled milk or 
milk and blood, spears over their shoulders, and 
bits of dirty coloured cloth or stained hide flimg 
loosely about them, shuffle silently along the 
trails. . . . But as the shadows fall and the 
clatter of bird life dies away, the swamp begins 
to hum. . . . 

Before we reached the other side we were as- 
sailed by clouds of ravenous mosquitoes. Here 
darkness was a friend, for with the fading of 
daylight, the stinging tsetse had retired. 

We traversed the wood-path in deepening 
gloom, stumbling in numerous pits made by the 
ponderous puds of elephant and rhino, and 
straining our eyes to pierce the pall of blackness. 
Every shadow seemed crouching to leap upon 
us. In this unlovely gloom, through which I 
stumbled with hair on end, our guide silently 

[199] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

disappeared, leaving us to jSnd our way 
alone I . . . 

Eventually we came to a small clearing with 
a few huts and a fire burning in the square. 
Some one was monotonously strumming a 
stringed gourd, a baby was whining, and the men 
of the village, squatted on three-legged stools, 
were solemnly taking snuff and laughing over 
idle jokes. 

The headman dropped the gourd and tumbled 
his stool over. 

"Peace!" he cried. "Peace! Masters!" 

A place was made by the fire. A gourd of 
cold water was produced ; and when Ah told the 
headman I had not eaten, wild honey and 
banana wine were brought, which Ah shared 
when I had had my fill. When I spoke of my 
errand, however, several of the youths by the 
fire laughed, and the headman stared with dis- 
may. 

"Bwana/* he exclaimed desperately. "I sent 
no runner. There is no leopard. We have not 
seen or heard a cat since last new moon.". . . 

In the next few minutes it was swiftly divulged 
that Chaussi, son of the headman, had journeyed 
to my handa hoping to procure a rifle. Return- 

[200] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

ing, when he realised that his simple scheme was 
spoiled, he had fled in a panic to the forest. 

AH was furiously sarcastic, and the headman 
was apologetic and anxious ; but the youths were 
secretly amused at the beating that awaited 
Chaussi. At first I also was angry, but as I 
sat gazing into the fire, occasionally lifting my 
gaze to the ring of dark faces with white eyes 
gleaming in the reflected hght of the red and 
yellow flames, the deep shadows pressing close on 
all sides, the wall of the Escarpment bending 
above like huge thunder clouds, and the stars 
peering and twinkling through the lace-work of 
the forest, I allowed myself to sink soothingly 
beneath deep waves of primitive emotions. 

I lighted my pipe and told Mzee, the head- 
man, to continue with his music. The old man 
picked up his gourd again, scowled fiercely for 
silence, and commenced to pick at the strings. 

In another moment his face shone; the notes 
hummed and muttered; and shoulders began to 
lift. Heads jerked automatically at each un- 
expected check in the pulsing music, and the 
youths began to nudge each other and giggle. 
We were soon encircled by the remaining vil-, 
lagers, almost veiled by the night but for the 

[ 201 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

sheen of their smooth bodies in the Hght of the 
flames. 

The notes took on a quicker rhythm. The 
deep gourd seemed a living thing — the voice of 
a satyr; it hummed; it gasped; it choked with 
laughter; and my savage friends, first thrusting 
forward the children, rapidly yielded to the in- 
toxication of the music. ... I became the centre 
of one of those strange ngomas that lay bare the 
very soul of the savage. . , . 

The old man chanted, twitching and vibrating 
to his own mad music ; the naked children, squat- 
ting back on their heels, convulsively kept time 
with their little unmuscular bodies to the beats; 
the girls and youths, on their knees, writhed 
through well-studied evolutions, then leaped to 
their feet, clapping their hands, stamping on the 
beaten ground — panting, singing, shouting. 
Sensual and without shame, naked with savage 
grace, maddened by a strange sort of ecstasy — 
it seemed to me as though the primitive soul, 
awakened by music, tortured by a dawning con- 
sciousness, struggled to escape its bonds. 

The scene, softened by the shadows, yet 
grotesquely illumined by the flame; the wild 
music hopelessly beating against the black vast- 

[ 202 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

ness that smothered us ; my own aloof presence — 
amazed and amused me with its strange symbol- 
ism. 

I thought of dowager chaperones, of languid 
beauties and lissom youths; of syncopations 
stimulated by half dollars ; of draperies and bot- 
tled perfumes ; of transient beauty and moneyed 
worth; of social talents and those who struggle 
for the smile of the favoured. What folly I 
Here before me was the beginning of all things 
— ^here was the soul of mankind expressing in 
the crudest form the savage instincts that are the 
roots of our social life. The cynical old man 
watches the play, grinning but keeping it within 
limits; the children mimic their elders; the 
mothers urge on the reluctant daughters; the 
youths, some bold, some bashful, leap in the in- 
toxication of the dance or hold back shyly, hop- 
ing to be persuaded! All are mad — all save 
Chaussi, the outcast! Because he is an outcast, 
peering bitterly from the shadows of the forest, 
he realises a new perspective; he understands 
true values. 

I distinctly heard a fat, half -naked matron 
urge her simpering daughter forward, exclaim- 
ing under her breath : 

[203] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

"Do not be a little idiot! See how Mud, the 
daughter of Hot Work, is carrying onl Go 
dance!". . . 

. And I broke up the ngoma in a burst of 
laughter. . . . 

The next afternoon a long lean runner came 
down from the Escarpment with despatches. 

The Comissioner and the redoubtable A. P. O. 
had struck the German force on the slopes of 
Oldeani. Though four days from his base. The 
Commissioner had only one day's provisions; 
while the Germanees were subsisting upon the 
remains of a rhino. The country was a wilder- 
ness, and the nearest inhabited areas were suffer- 
ing from famine; so The Commissioner, despite 
the enemy's machine guns and choice of position, 
intended to attack immediately; and would I 
come quickly to Mbulu to follow him up ? 

I set out an hour later with Robbie, leaving my 
boy and Ali behind, sick with fever. The going 
was slow at first because my foot had become in- 
fected by the bite of some venomous insect. . . . 

Looking upward at the dark wall of the 
Escarpment, I felt the delightful sensation 
of climbing into the pages of an old ro- 
mance — above, in the clouds, was the dim abode 

[204] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

of a "She," a land of "People of the Mists." 
There was no moon. My foot caused sharp 
pains to dart up my thigh at every step. The 
exertion of the chmb, and the rare atmosphere, 
made the blood beat heavily in the temples. We 
struggled for breath, halting frequently to revive 
ourselves. Heavy clouds hung close overhead, 
and the forested slope was gloomy and silent 
about us. The trail would have been absolutely 
impassable but for a glorious accident. 

Early in the evening the great swamp below 
had been fired near the centre; and the flames, 
unhindered by wind or obstacles, swept outward 
in a perfect scarlet circle, throwing against the 
dull canopy of clouds a livid light which was re- 
flected down again upon the thin winding path 
to light us on our way. Weak creatures, 
wheezing for the little bit of breath that gave 
us motion, we seemed the only germs of life in 
that roaring inferno, crawhng painfully over the 
edge while the caldron filled the air with terrify- 
ing sounds — ^the flame ripping through the thick, 
dry papyrus, the wind sighing in the quivering 
forest, the scream of tongues of fire licking the 
surface of cold water. 

When we reached the edge of the Escarpment, 
[ 205 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

a cold wind struck us ; so, wrapping ourselves in 
our blankets, we made nests in the long grass 
and took our chances with the Dark until the 
pale sun unfolded to us the Land of Mists. . . . 

It is a ciu-ious land. A table upon a table, 
with a surface roughly seven thousand feet above 
the sea, billowing in a turbulence of hills. Cut 
off from the outer (and yet savage) world by the 
tremendous walls of the Escarpment, there are 
still other barriers that hem it in — ^the salt Lake 
Eyassi to the west; the slopes of forest-clad 
mountains to the north; the Massai Steppe and 
salt Manyara to the east; and great reaches of 
unexplored thorn bush and mountain to the 
south. Thick mists often fill its valleys and rest 
heavily on the hills; mountain streams brawl in 
the ravines; while on the gentler slopes cattle 
are tended by little black children shouting eerily 
to their charges, and rough fields are tilled with 
wooden hoes by the naked remnants of ancient 
races. 

It is a vast citadel to which the survivors of 
harried races fled in ones and twoes when the 
lean Hamites swept down from the north. The 
natives are strange in their manners, their lan- 
guages, and their physical characteristics. A 

[206] 




H 



X 



t H 



m 



-^ 



o 




m^m^Bmemm 



A Massai Brave With One of His Wives, Along the Edge of the Massai 

Steppe. 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

complete nakedness, almost general in men and 
women, seems to be the only common trait, for 
some live in huts, and eat meal and meat and 
milk and honey, while others dwell in the forests 
like wild creatures, sleeping in nests or crevices 
in the rocks where night finds them, and Hving 
impartially on locusts, small game, and white 
ants. Some are comely and others almost typi- 
cal of neolithic times. . . . 

The men came bounding down the trail with 
long, springy strides, panting in peculiar shrill 
whistles ; while the children trotted along behind 
the goats and cattle, prodding them with spears. 
The women, with all sorts of loads on their heads, 
from crates of fowls to gourds of curdled milk, 
shuffled along with hide petticoats flapping about 
their knees, and — if they affected the style of 
the Massai — ^heavy concentric rings of brass and 
copper rattling about their necks, wrists, and 
ankles. With varying degrees of shyness or 
boldness, these all gave me greeting in different 
tongues. 

''Jamhor of the SwahiH. 

"Shoha!" of the Massai, spitting on their pahns 
and holding them forward. 

''Ita-lalar of the Wambulu. 
[ 207 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Among a flock of wrinkled wenches who came 
upon me suddenly, I noticed one remarkably 
pretty woman. She must have been of the same 
stock as the A. P. O.'s presumed Wattaturu 
chief, for she had the fineness of feature of 
an Abyssinian. She was exceptionally tall, 
straight-limbed and high-breasted; of a light 
brown complexion; and with a countenance as 
comely as any I've seen in Africa. She carried 
her chin high, and her glance was level, though 
not defiant, while her eyes, lustrous and intelli- 
gent, seemed to indicate a spirit and experience 
aeons beyond her black, grinning companions. 
She gave me a swift glance, smiled, said ^'Ita- 
lala" (so I knew she was of an ancient race), 
and in a moment had passed, while I gazed after 
her, perplexed, noting the comely figure, the blue 
bead necklace, the soft kid-skin petticoat prettily 
worked in blue and white glass beads and 
cowries. . . . Suddenly a little withered old man 
came skipping and sidling along the trail, jab- 
bering breathlessly. His sole possessions and 
ornaments were two long bright spears, a scarred 
old buffalo-hide shield, and a snuff-box of rhino 
horn which swung on a dirty piece of string 
about his neck, covering his chest with yellow 

[208] 




An Old Massai Woman— About Thirty — Eldest Wife of the 
Headman of a Maiivcia. 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

powder. He chattered and whistled, and 
chirped us a greeting. 

Springing lightly into the air, the little warrior 
emitted a long, shrill whistle, leered suspiciously 
at me and smirked a merry smirk. 

"My wives, bwanaf These are my wives !" 

I have no doubt he paid as much as three goats 
for the comely one. . . . 

The red, castellated homa^ chipped and scarred 
with the marks o»f late fights, was in a whirl of 
activity when I passed through the small, sprawl- 
ing village and approached the moated entrance. 
The Commissioner had met with unexpected 
success. By a bold bit of work, he and the 
A. P. O. had managed to force the unconditional 
surrender of almost the entire German force; 
and had returned pretty well used up, but escort- 
ing almost two hundred prisoners and a fair 
amount of booty. 

Though weary and sore, Mhe asharis were de- 
lighted with their accomplishment. Their eyes 
flashed; they leaned forward, snapping their 
salutes, but grinning from ear to ear; and when 
I spoke to them they jabbered like children in 
their eagerness to let their old master know the 
news. 

[209] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

"Efendi" said Sergeant Kombo with the 
weary cynicism of the old soldier, "it was not too 
bad. Not a proper battle, you understand ; still, 
not too bad." Then, when I smiled knowingly, 
his eyes sparkled. "But, by Allah, excellency, it 
was a very beautiful journey!". . . 

One day some years ago, it seems, I sat 
cosily in an inn with you overlooking the icy 
waste of Long Island Sound, discussing the ex- 
ploits of the Emden, and then the Konigsherg 
which had taken refuge in the mouth of the 
Rufigi after destroying the Pegasus in Zanzibar 
harbour. What stretch of imagination could 
then have connected me with the capture of some 
of its chief officers in one of the most remote 
sections of Africa! . . . 

The Commissioner and the A. P. O. were not 
elated. They felt the peevishness of a small suc- 
cess ; were irritable because of the necessary book 
work and accounting that these affairs entail, 
but principally, I think, because there was only 
a half -bottle of peppermint with which to cele- 
brate ; and some of the usual querulous straf eings 
had just arrived in despatches. 

We held a sTiauri in the A. P. O.'s living-room 
— an attractive den littered with Hon and leopard 

[210] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

skins, a number of horns and heads, among 
which was that of a three-horned rhino, and a 
scattering of spears, shields, bows and arrows, 
and knob-kerries — and examined into the state 
of the nation. The Commissioner had been 
ordered back to Aruscha, and the A. P. O. was 
going to be extremely busy with civil affairs. 
Nevertheless, a detachment of the Germanees 
had escaped capture and was occupying a point 
about a hundred and seventy-five miles distant 
beyond the long, desolate Lake Eyassi. These 
were capable of swiftly recruiting a fair force. 
So I decided to go after them. 

I sent a patrol northward around the lake; 
while I went southward to intercept and drive 
back what remained of the enemy. . . . 

A film of unreality seems to hang over this 
trek. Robbie and I had between us only one 
full day's rations, and no change of clothing; 
while the asharisj, owing to the lack of supplies 
at Mbulu, were not very much better o£F. 

We travelled swiftly with an absolute mini- 
mum of luggage, relying on the forests and the 
rarely encountered natives for supplies. Fol- 
lowing the very edge of the eaves of Africa, each 
day brought experiences comparable with noth- 

[211] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

ing in the lives of the outer world. After pass- 
ing a night of bitter cold on the heights where 
the Jaida River rises, and being pursued the fol- 
lowing day for many hours by the warriors of 
Tungobesch, who took us for Germanees, we 
entered a very strange wilderness. 

In this new wilderness every pace seems to 
mark off a hundred years until you find your- 
self striding through a neolithic world of tumbled 
rocks and gnarled scrub, of ungainly monsters 
and naked men with prognathous-hke jaws, 
clicking like monkeys among themselves, and 
sending blunt-headed arrows after unwieldy, 
large-beaked birds. 

The aborigines of this district are the Watin- 
dige — a tiny tribe that is rapidly vanishing, an 
expiring race. Since the beginning of time no 
other tribe has assimilated them, none seems to 
have won their confidence. Naked, with a child- 
hke blending of shyness and passionate boldness, 
trembling in the shadows and mists of the forest, 
drifting through the glades, every quiver in the 
grass to them the voice of a demon, every sough- 
ing in the trees above the breath of gods, their 
narrow intellect gives to their Hves a very small 
compass. 

[212] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

God is Ishudko, the sun, and an old woman; 
while Seta^ the moon, is male. Tsaho, the stars, 
are the children of the moon, though cold and 
distant, and not familiar with the shy little chil- 
dren of earth. Though the passing spirit goes 
to IshuakOj, the prospect leaves the little hunter 
cool. He throws meat east and west, and gazes 
with awe at the sight of Ishuako come to earth 
and resting on Mabuguru, the dim, sacred moun- 
tain which hung on our left flank for all a day's 
march. But why is radiant Ishuako an old 
woman? — ^And why, since the sun is God, does 
the httle hunter go to his end doubled up in a 
deep pit with his arrows and gourd beside him? 
Again, though a child of nature, he very curi- 
ously maintains the strictest and. most unnatural 
customs in regard to morals. An unfaithful 
wife is beaten to death, or such was the custom 
imtil recently, and this in spite of the fact th^ 
her purchase price was only five or ten arrows 
with a few beads thrown in, and the added fact 
that neighbouring tribes are almost as a-moral 
as animals. 

A philosophic study of these people is calcu- 
lated tor fill one with misgiving and a profound 
melancholy; and yet for them it cannot be bad 

[213] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

to feel that the gods are conveniently near, 
demons can be side-stepped, and heaven itself is 
almost within leaping distance above. To them 
the heavens seem only part of the house they live 
in. Copernicus might never have lived ; and the 
whole race will pass away without one fleeting 
speculation on the unplumbed depths of space. 
Yet, after all, what is better on earth than to 
live cleanly, to fight a fair fight, and to die 
bravely in the open? . . . 

Each night the leaping camp fires, lighting up 
groups of askaris and porters stewing messes in 
their sufurias and grilling bits of game, seemed 
to be swaying and struggling to hold a point be- 
leaguered by the dark. When the throbbing 
challenge of the lion had ceased with the capture 
of its prey, the brief, solemn stillness would 
then be broken by the jungle chorus — ^the 
screams and whistles of night birds, the throaty 
piping of the hyrax, the mournful, distressing 
wail of the hyena, the interminable shrill uproar 
of the cicadas, panicky crashings in the bush; 
and then, if you peered out in the encircling 
darkness, the velvet canopy appeared punctured 
by a hundred gleaming eyes. . . . All this was 
life and joy to me; but I sometimes felt sorry 

[214.] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

for Robbie, sitting by his shelter tent staring out 
into the thunderous dark with an unhappy and 
puzzled expression in his eyes. 

The terror of the jungle lies in its black 
mystery and loneliness. A sentry on duty at an 
isolated point in the night believes that he is 
abandoned — the dark engulfs him. — ^Whichever 
way he turns, he feels that a knife, a spear, slash- 
ing talons, or grinding jaws are about to be 
plunged into his back, or rend him like dark 
bolts of hghtning. . . . 

At whatever hour the red moon rolled out of 
the gloomy east, I invariably awoke without 
further warning and drew myself reluctantly 
from the blankets; for this was the signal that 
the time to march had come. . . . 

Standing for a moment shivering and chatter- 
ing with the intense cold of the highlands, and 
looking at the prone, still figures about me, it 
comes upon me with a rush that these are more 
than children to me, for their health, their des- 
tinies, their lives are mine to guard, to direct, to 
sacrifice. The asharis, marking the line of the 
perimeter, sleep heads outward with arms flung 
across their rifles ; the porters bundle themselves 
like sacks of meal beside their piled-up loads, the 

[215] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

weary sentry of the quarter-guard standing 
above them sunk into his great coat, with another 
sentry beyond silhouetted for an instant in the 
dim red glow. I do not know what dreams I 
may disperse, but in another instant my whistle 
breaks the silence; and the dim shadows, with 
grunts and sighs, reluctantly come to life. 

In less than three minutes. Corporal Sudi bin 
Ismail reports for the advance. 

"Teniam^ effendi!'' 

And Robbie is ready with the rear guard. 

We move off in single file, stumbUng down 
a rocky dechvity, through a tangled scrub forest, 
and plunging forward into a mysterious dark- 
ness. 

No one speaks. It's the hour of silence, and 
no other sound comes from the column than the 
dry shuffle of sandals, the snapping of twigs, 
and the whisper of sere grass brushing against 
bare legs. Always on these marches, no matter 
how solemnly the stillness works upon our 
spirits, or disenchains us till we soar with the 
rising moon, there is constantly a subconscious 
apprehension of impending danger. And this is 
no fanciful fear. . . . 

During our operations on this safari^ two 
[216] 




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s 



t 

ft, 



3 

8 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

straggling porters were devoured by lions; ^ve 
times our lines were rushed by rhino, and once 
menaced by a herd of buffalo. One messenger, 
bearing important despatches, was attacked by 
a leopard. We found puff adders under our 
bedding and in the packs; and of a night, a 
hyena, pulling at my blankets, awakened me. 
Besides, there were the ever dangerous and an- 
noying anopheles mosquitoes, tsetse flies, and 
wood ticks and jiggers, from which the least we 
could expect were unhealing veldt sores. In de- 
tail these things are ignored, but the subcon- 
scious knowledge of them keeps the nerves 
taut. . . . 

No one dares to straggle at night. At the 
most unexpected moment a snorting whistle, ap- 
parently within four feet of the middle of each 
man's back, brings the column to a breathless 
halt. A sibilant murmur passes down the line: 

"'Faru! 'Faru! Master I" 

We stand tensely, blinded by the dark, won- 
dering where the blow will fall . . . and the 
next moment the shadows on our flanks seem to 
heave, and the great bulk of a rhino is flung 
among us. 

At the first charge the line dissolves before 
[217] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

the beast. If he blunders away, every one 
breathes more easily, and the march is resumed. 
If he charges again, again the line dissolves — 
and again! — and again! Ordinarily no one 
dares fire, for even a rhino may be ally to the 
enemy. But if the occasion warrants, httle 
spurts of flame stab the dark, and the snap of 
the rifles awakens strange echoes. 

The antics of this blind, blundering, fiu'ious 
fool are merely incidents, and often amusing. 
It's no grave matter to watch naked porters 
flying like squirrels into thorn trees, and after- 
wards very slowly and very delicately plucking 
themselves off again. The real terror of the 
night is cold, intelligent, merciless. 

Trudging along through the dark, crowding 
bush, making no more sound than a night wind 
through northern pines, marching becomes auto- 
matic, and the unoccupied mind begins to steal 
away homeward — ^to Argyll, to Taplow in spar- 
kling June, to the Boston Post Road when the 
frost-touched leaves are falling; or, perhaps, to 
jungle clearings or nights in Zanzibar. . . . Sud- 
denly a shot snaps in the bush, a bullet swishes 
like a whip above the head. Several more sing 

[218] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

from the flank. Then comes the sickening, 
damnable stutter: 

"Dud! dud! dud! dud! dud! dud! dud!—" 

There is a rush. Every one flings himself into 
position to await a murderous charge, or to 
push forward blindly past the ungauged menace; 
while, for a suffocating instant, a tumult of 
thoughts and emotions sweep over the leader — 
the weight of his responsibihty, the necessity for 
immediate and decisive action, the horror of 
failure, the first seeming impossibility of suc- 
cess; and then the fleeting thought, in this 
savage jungle with none but black men about, 
in the tomb of African night: is this the 
Rendezvous? . . . 

We marched under the walls of Mkalama one 
day when dawn was breaking; and found the 
great white-washed boma rearing its walls on 
the crest of a kopje in the centre of a plain en- 
circled by rugged hills. 

Major H — was in charge of this lonely but 
powerful post, a most hospitable and kindly 
man who had himted in the Canadian Rockies 
and travelled the shores of Tanganyika twenty 
years ago. He gave me the latest mihtary in- 

[219] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

formation, found new porters to replace my 
weary Wambulu (exhorting them from the 
barasa of his citadel), and introduced some of 
his provisions into my empty chop-box. 

He and Major B — from Kondoa-Irangi, a 
neighbouring post about a hundred and fifty 
miles away, had been entertaining very gloomy 
thoughts about the German menace in America. 
I was able by facts and fervour to persuade them 
that American ideals had no regard for race or 
previous nationahty, that the country was a solid 
commonwealth. 

"Well, it's very reassuring," said Major H — 
with a clearing brow. "I'm glad to know it." 

"Jolly good," said B— thankfully. "It's 
splendid news." 

So that settled a certain unrest in central 
Africa. 

I was grimy and very sloppy; but the Majors 
and I, lolling in long chairs, with hands crossed 
comfortably on our stomachs, had a very re- 
freshing discussion on Tudor architecture and 
interior decorations, on O. Henry and Stephen 
Leacock, before I moved off the same day and 
limpingly led my asharis over the hills and away 
into a still more rugged wilderness. 

[220] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

This wilderness was virtually waterless and 
stretched away to the districts bordering the 
southern tip of Victoria Nyanza. It was rich 
game country, but trackless and virtually with- 
out' water at this season, though at other times 
great floods suddenly sweep over broad ex- 
panses of it. We were obliged to dig for hours 
in dry, sandy courses to obtain drink; while for 
food I shot kongoni, wildebeest, eland, and 
antelope, without stopping the column or pro- 
longing a single halt. 

Once at dawn on the plain of the Sibiti I 
shot one of the huge, black-maned lions for 
which the place is famous; while two others 
rose from the dust nearby and ran away like 
frightened dogs. All sorts of game lived in 
the bush and along the fringes of the plain, and 
wild fowl in places were as numerous as chickens 
in a run. 

One day at the end of a waterless march, we 
halted and made a very dry bivouac in a hope- 
lessly sandy course. We dug for hours without 
finding the slightest evidence of moisture; our 
tongues were large and our mouths had little 
saliva in them. Sitting dejectedly outside the 
camp, I watched a troop of baboons with rising 

[221] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

interest. Though droll, they are dangerous if 
you arouse their ill will. So I did not laugh to 
offend the lumbering elders; for I find they 
also are bound by laws, have their conventions, 
and Hve up to them. The old men are rough 
and surly, cynical with their women folk, and 
annoyed at the chattering of the children; the 
women are patient but sly, dragging the whim- 
pering "totoes" about, or clouting the more 
lusty or mischievous youngsters; while the 
youths are forever planning intrigues under the 
baleful gleam of the old men's reddening eyes, 
and suffering their furious onslaughts if dis- 
covered. . . . However, I followed the troop, 
and they brought me to a grove of palms bear- 
ing large, fibrous nuts filled with a substance 
like rich vanilla custard, for which we were al- 
most as grateful as though each were a gourd 
of water. . . . 

Eventually we entered the Muanza district, 
where the huts become high and conical and are 
capped with ostrich eggs. Stockades encircle 
them, and the meal is stored in vast rock caverns. 

The sultani of Kitaganda came out with a 
large retinue to meet me; and I held a shauri 
under a baobab tree. So far the scouts and ir- 

[ 222 ] 




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Shirati Wives of Kikuyu Askaris, in the Muanza District, German East 

Africa. 




M3'ing Column Entraining at Voi in Steel Carriages of the 
Uganda Railway. 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

regulars had brought in a number of prisoners, 
and driven off foraging parties. An inteUigence 
officer, scouting from Mkalama, had reported to 
me that the dwindling German force had, upon 
our approach, abandoned their camp and fled 
northward. This hasty retreat entailed three 
days' march without water, and at the end would 
bring them straight into the hands of my 
northern patrol. 

There was nothing then for me to do but to 
retrace my steps as rapidly as possible, trusting 
that the Mbulu force could in the meantime cope 
with the Germanees. 

My men were very tired, and my foot now 
in a dangerous condition. The poison had ap- 
parently gone into my leg, so that the pain had 
spread from knee to groin; while the foot itself, 
due to crude giraffe-hide sandals I had cut 
with rough, parchment-like thongs, was bhstered, 
raw, and filthy. Two of the askaris also had bad 
feet; a great water-blister from heel to toe 
covered the foot of one, while the other, afflicted 
in the same manner, had cut the swelhng skin 
with a sheath knife, so that the bottom of the 
foot was completely raw. Neither of these 
askaris said a word to me about their feet, and 

[ 223 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

would not drop behind. At the same time I 
could not let down on the pace. 

The return march to a great extent was over 
ground already covered. Distances, dangers, 
water-holes were known in advance, and the 
knowledge that the safari was moving home- 
ward served to enliven the column. I enjoyed, 
with less anxiety, the silent mystery of the bush ; 
and the glorious majesty of Ishuaho, the sun. 
. . . Once at the Naval arsenal in Washington, 
a boy companion and myself were almost over- 
whelmed by the accidental overturn of a caldron 
of molten magnesiimi bronze. It spilled about 
us like sparkling burgundy. Very much like 
that, the sun, tilting over the edge of the Escarp- 
ment, poured its red and gold into the valleys, 
sending its rays splashing and scintillating 
through the lifting mists. The choir of the 
jungle gave it greeting, and even the asharis 
sang — at dawn. 

After leaving The Commissioner and the A. 
P. O. at Mbulu, I covered with my men over 
two hundred and sixty miles, mainly over un- 
mapped wilderness trails, in foiu-teen days, 
reaching Mbulu on the evening of the last day. 
I was just in time to receive a despatch from the 

[224.] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

northern patrol reporting that, with the stout A. 
P. O. in charge, accompanied by ruga-rugas and 
native police, it had bumped the German force 
after coming around Lake Eyassi, "according to 
schedule"; and there in the bush surprised and 
attacked it, accounting for all in prisoners and 
casualties. 

Accordingly I took the A. P. O.'s angular 
horse, and leaving the askaris to rest at the homa, 
rode out eighteen miles and met the returning 
party. Both prisoners and askaris looked very 
weary and forlorn. The A. P. O. saw his men 
into camp, then walked a bit with me talking 
over events. There was no doubt the men were 
in too weak a condition to march for several 
days; and since urgent despatches had come 
through recalHng me, I could not delay. So, 
as we met on the plains, though with the saddle 
reversed, the A. P. O. and I parted on the 
heights. I saw his hand wave in the dark. 

"Good luck!" he caUed. "Maybe I'U see you 
in Aruscha." 

"Maybe ! Good luck!" and the old horse went 
stumbling along the trail. . . . 

On the following morning, turning our backs 
on Mbulu, we set out on the return trek to 

[225] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Sanja, over a hundred and eighty miles away. 
Dawn found us on the edge of the Escarpment 
once more. 

As the sun rose hotly over the Steppe, the 
white, spreading plains, salt lake, and forests of 
thorn rolled thousands of feet below us Hke a 
drab and worn-out carpet — ^measureless, water- 
less, dusty, and dull. But far away, almost 
against the sun, a pale eminence appeared — ^the 
rounded dome of lion-haunted Lol Kissale. 

Two paths lay before us. The one to the east 
was considerably shorter, but it required drag- 
ging my sore and tired men across a seventy- 
mile stretch without water ; while the roundabout 
route past Lol Kissale was mainly through 
dense, unexplored thorn forest, though I judged 
it offered a possibility of water. 

The asharis fell in slowly and stiffly. I said 
to them: 

"Listen, asharis. There is no water on the 
straight road. But near Lol Kissale perhaps 
there is water — perhaps none. I'm not yet 
sure. Nevertheless, I'm taking the long road. 
Those who are sick may remain behind at 
Madukani. I promise the remainder two days' 
rest in Aruscha when the march is done.". . • 

[226] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

The nearest askari said, "Yes. We are 
ready, master." And my orderly, clicking his 
heels, grinned and murmured, "Ahsanti sana. 
Thank you very much, effendi. We will go 
with you." 

So we turned our faces away from the Land 
of Mists and commenced the three-thousand- 
foot plunge down to the flat, drab plain. . . . 

Noon halt was at a wallow where brack- 
ish water oozed from the edge of a salt-en- 
crusted lake; but nightfall found us well in the 
forest. 

No enchanted wood of Grimm's had half the 
charm of this stretch of unexplored bush, 
marked only by game trails. Its silence seemed 
a sort of suspended animation which might be 
aroused any moment into weird and devastating 
action. What terrific forms lurked within the 
forest recesses we could not tell, yet on every 
hand there multipHed evidence of terrible rest- 
less lives. Huge wallows ; pud marks like small 
wells ; fair-sized trees torn up by the roots ; path- 
ways as broad as country lanes ; skulls and horns 
emphasising the shadows — a riot of wanton life 
and unmourned death, bound by no laws but the 
lust to conquer and the fierce determination to 

[227] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

live. . . . And yet we saw little. The forest 
seemed to hpld its breath as we passed through. 

Once the forest about us suddenly came to 
life. For fully twenty minutes the shadows 
danced with the light of grey and yellow bodies 
flashing by; the trees seemed to shake with the 
soft rumble of galloping hoofs; and strange 
whistlings and barkings startled our ears. As 
suddenly the sounds ceased; and we shuffled on 
with the uncomfortable impression that a thou- 
sand eyes glared at us from behind the trees. 

But there was drink. 

Each day we found a water-hole; one, a lily- 
pond, fragrant, clear, and enlivened by the pres- 
ence of graceful birds and beautiful antelope; 
another, a round hole in the shadows, covered 
with green scum through which two wicked little 
hell-divers swam restlessly. ("But then, be 
careful, for if you drink of one, you will shrink 
and become ugly as a toad; but if you only 
taste the other. . . .") We drank impartially. 
Akida bin Juma and Dongolaya could not pos- 
sibly have added to the homeliness of their fea- 
tures, and I certainly saw no improvement. Be- 
sides, the Idlongozij, a bee-hunter whom I had 
picked up for a guide, had tasted all the waters, 

[228] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

and he assured me he had got nothing worse 
than varicose veins. 

Still, I suspect that hilongozi. 

He was himself a forest imp, and had spent 
forty-odd years stealing honey from the little 
folk and running away from the big folk of the 
forest. That forest terrified him, strangely 
enough; and later, on his return journey, he 
made a detour of seven days in order to escape 
its dangers. Black, wiry, and naked, he was a 
gibbering child of the wild. A bit of blanket 
flung over his shoulder; a dirty red cap with a 
bedraggled feather in it; worn-out sandals; two 
long, shiny spears ; a scanty string of blue beads, 
with a tiny tobacco pouch — ^these constituted 
his entire furniture and fortune. Yet he was 
merry as a child, wise as an old man, bold and 
timorous as any forest creature. 

When his little old face puckered up in a 
grin, disclosing his solitary yellow tooth, the 
whole line smiled; when he broke into the shrill 
chatter of the Wambugwe tongue, the asharis 
laughed ; but when, at each halt, he squatted be- 
fore me to light his improvised bark pipe, drew 
huge draughts of smoke into his leathery lungs, 
then burst into squeals and shrieks and splutters 

[ 229 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

of joy, the forest was shaken by a strange ex- 
plosion of mirth from a hmidred and forty 
savages. 

On the third night after leaving the foot of 
the Escarpment, we reached the edge of the 
forest and came out upon the trail from Ufiome 
which skirts the Massai Steppe and leads past 
Lol Kissale. The asharis, setting foot on this 
road, were jubilant; they laughed and chattered 
and made up rude songs about it. This seemed 
to annoy the hilongozi intensely. He became 
shy and silent and excessively nervous, mutter- 
ing to himself and casting appeahng glances 
backward. 

I couldn't understand this at all until sud- 
denly towards evening he gave a low squeal, 
seized me by the arm, and dragged me to one 
side of the trail, his beady eyes fixed intently 
on something across the veldt — a wisp of smoke. 

"Master, the Massai!" 

In a flash I understood. For me, the ribbon 
of dust winding away meant friends at the end. 
I could envision vast, bellowing ships, screaming 
locomotives, and electric Hghts that blink the 
stars out of countenance; but for the hilongozi, 
all was dark. For him every forward step 

[230] 



tr. i^K>- *-'.'! 



i^ m-f'-.'j^ 




■^ 





SOUTH OF SUEZ 

meant an invasion into the land of the Massai — 
war on the Hamite hordes. . . . How little he 
knows! How much do I? His sons, I sup- 
pose, will drive motor-cars. Mine may fling 
spears. ... 

Ali was first to spy Kihma Njaro, austere, 
cool, lovely beyond expression, floating high 
above the hot, rolling yellow veldt hke a white, 
gleaming cloud projected above the drab pall 
of a smoky city. 

The pace quickened. 

The sight revived the utterly weary men like 
a cold draught. We marched all day straight 
towards the towering cone ; but at night it seemed 
to have receded. We marched through the 
night — not having touched water since dawn — 
resting only till the moon came up to light the 
trail. We saw the sun rise red and hot on our 
right hand, but the great mountain, veiled in 
smoke from a distant burning plain and mists 
from the uplands, had faded utterly from view — 
fifty miles away. 

This day, for the first time, I permitted the 
weaker ones to lag, and pushed on with those 
able to keep the pace. 

The morning mists slowly lifted, and green 
[231] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

and gracious Meru rose up before us, clothed 
in verdure, with clouds in its motherly arms. 
Famihar but heat-scintillating kopjes now ap- 
peared on either hand, and rolled by. We all 
knew our destination, its distance, and what 
awaited us there. . . . When at last we arrived, 
after an unbroken forty miles of veldt, at Engare 
Mtoni, the first stream that pours from the cool 
shoulders of the mountain, the askaris very care- 
fully and deliberately bathed their wrists, their 
ankles, their faces and heads. Afterwards they 
sipped a mouthful of water each, and gargled 
their throats. . . . 

Then we bivouacked. The men bathed, 
washed their worn khaki, and scraped their chins 
with bits of old razors. 

At three o'clock the same day we marched to 
the lovely little German-Dutch village of 
Aruscha, eight miles away, and entered it at 
dusk when the cooling air was freshened with the 
scent of roses and orange blossoms. 

The Skipper was standing in front of the 
crossroads store, a smile on his sun-reddened 
face, a gleam of understanding in his eyes. Our 
greeting was commonplace. Kombo, coming to 
me with the question: ''Safari mkwisha, ef- 

[ 232 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

fendi?'' and then my reply: "Yes. The march 
is ended. You can rest here until you receive 
orders," — ^was merely routine. . . . But the 
Skipper upset all my complacency with a terrible 
jolt. 

"I'm afraid you must move off to-morrow 
morning," he remarked tranquilly. "The men 
look pretty fresh. I'd like you to go to-night, 
if possible!" 

How I damned the razors, the soap, and the 
fresh water of Engare Mtoni ! 

"I have promised the men two days' rest," I 
said. 

"Oh! . . . Well, these are orders from 
Nairobi. A troop train is waiting for us at 
Sanja River railhead. We have to entrain 
early in the morning on Wednesday. That 
gives you only three days. The main column 
has already cleared out, and I've only been wait- 
ing to see you." 

"Is this absolutely urgent?" 

"Yes. There's a transport waiting at Mom- 
basa to take us down the Coast." He smiled 
cynically. "The whole battalion is expected to 
be in action down there within a month." 

"Well," I said desperately, "please don't give 
[233] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

me any orders as to the time when I'm to march ; 
and I'll promise to be at Sanja River at nine 
o'clock on Wednesday morning." 

"Righto!" said the Skipper, and mounted his 
horse. . . . 

I rested the asharis that night, the next day, 
and until three o'clock the following morning ! 

Then we marched to Sanja River, and reached 
the railhead in the dust of the main colimin. 

I limped these last forty miles in a comfort- 
able pair of bedroom slippers, purchased from 
a Greek trader. . . . 

And, of course, we waited at Sanja River 
two days for a train! For we had encountered 
the tip of one of civilisation's antennee, and 
knew that thenceforth we would move with much 
bustle, and little expedition. ... 



[234] 




X 



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P-. 



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o cr' 









Cii 



o 




Kwa Heri 

MY boy came in breathlessly to announce 
that the M. T. had sent a car for me, 
and it was waiting with my bags already packed. 
There was no longer any excuse for hngering. 
So, feeling ashamed at the sight of the ill-con- 
cealed envy in my companions' faces as they rose 
to bid me farewell, I said ^^Kwa heriT all around, 
and left abruptly, leaving much unsaid that I 
should have liked my old comrades to under- 
stand. They were a pathetic group standing at 
the head of the cement stairway, just out of the 
glaring sun, looking after me with brooding ex- 
pressions. 

The guard was mounting as I entered the 
barrack square. The askaris were rigidly at at- 
tention. The order "Fix!" was snapped, and 
the polished steel flashed overhead in the sun- 
light. I slipped into the shadows of the long 
veranda, skirting the square, intending to make 
the gateway and pass, observed only by the 
quarter-guard. 

[ 235 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

"Bay'nets!" 

The weapons rattled briskly; the soldiers 
snapped rigidly back to attention and awaited 
the next shouted order. It was a pretty sight, 
and I felt a httle glow for having done my share 
in training them. At this moment the native 
Sergeant-major, James, spied me out of the 
corner of his all-seeing eye. He turned sharply 
in my direction, saluted, and shouted across the 
parade-ground : 

"Kwa herij effendi! Farewell, excellency!" 

Instantly every non-commissioned officer for- 
got his command and called to me, "Kwa heri! 
Kwa heri, hwana!" 

The officer of the guard tried to check the 
break sharply; I called to them to stand; but it 
was too late. The askaris held their ahgnment 
instinctively, but the N. C. O.'s came trotting 
across the square, while the askaris shouted mes- 
sages of farewell and good luck, and the white 
officer in command, yielding tactfully, saluted 
me from his position, grinning broadly. My old 
comrades, black but true, my children who had 
shared many strange vicissitudes with me, 
pressed about, seizing my hands, asking Allah to 
travel with me and bring me back again. I 

[ 236 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

talked to them, bade ''Kwa heri' to them all, with 
a word for those who would never stand on 
parade again, and passed out. But at the gate. 
Sergeant Juma bin Kombo, stupid, gentle, 
doggedly courageous Juma, turned out the 
guard, gave me the general salute, and almost 
wept over my hands. 

I climbed into the car, with the white corporal 
in charge looking at me curiously, and rolled 
away in a cloud of dust, yet wrapped in 
glory! . . . 

By evening I found myself leaning over the 
shoreward rail of a listing, hmping, war-worn 
trooper, one of a heterogeneous mob of madmen 
who maintained their composure under a mask 
of cynical amusement. Homeward bound! 
The sick, the inefficient, the ambitious, — broken, 
battered, burned, with bare legs and much- 
patched khaki, — some were destined to continue 
the exhausting fight in the bush southward in 
Portuguese East Africa, some were on their way 
to France and happy at the change, some hoped 
to recuperate in the Union, and a few were 
bound for England on leave. 

All this I knew, for the job of adjutant had 
been wished upon me. While I was busy 

[237] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

chivvying a suitable Sergeant-major to share the 
burden of my woes, all Africa was dumped upon 
the decks and in the holds, all Africa and its 
household furniture. Yelling, singing, cursing, 
with bugles blowing, winches roaring, and whis- 
tles piping shrilly, laughing, grunting, a tor- 
rent of black and white and yellow came up out 
of barges, over the sides, and spread about the 
ship. 

At midnight we clanked out of harbour. 

The exhausted mob simmered into silence. 
Order settled over the ship; and the sentries 
took their posts with their habitual expres- 
sions of stoical indifference and internal bitter- 
ness. 

My work done, I crept on deck apologetically, 
and hid myself in a dark corner from which I 
could see the shore fading with the waning moon. 
Here calmness came over me, and I thought with 
a tinge of melancholy of the friends I had 
left stewing and simmering in the thankless 
tropics; regrets formed in my heart, memories 
crowded about me, faces appeared in the dark- 
ness. Suddenly there were voices at my side, 
and I found myself smTOunded by old friends 
of the bush, bound for Durban, in South Africa. 

[238] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

Our greetings were simple but profane. . . . 

We left the bottle-necked and bloody Port- 
of -Peace (Dar-es-Salaam) over our stern; we 
raised and passed the scarred and pestilential 
slopes of Lindi, twinkling prettily above its 
opalescent waters, like a courtesan covering its 
venal nature with a smirk; we came to Mozam- 
bique, gleaming like a crusted gem upon the blue 
waters; and we ran into a bit of scrub-lined 
beach called Lombo, where several dhows were 
brought alongside into which two companies 
of black troops with their boyish white officers 
tumbled. 

The blacks poured over the side, grinning and 
chanting, while the open dhows took them to the 
thin line of beach, whence they plunged straight 
into the bush and disappeared. That is my last 
impression of the Coast — the black troops clam- 
bering down our rusty sides, leaping into the 
mild surf of a tropic shore, disappearing into 
the bush to fight, and the white boys in command 
turning at the last moment to wave farewell, 
torn between the dignity of their command, the 
uncertainty of the inscrutable future, the reluc- 
tance of parting, and the necessity for haste, 
calling back faintly to us: 

[ 239 ] 



SOUTH OF SUEZ 

"Kwa hei'ij you lucky beggars ! Kwa herir 
The old ship clanked seaward again and 
swung southward, where stood the gates of civ- 
ilisation and the Cape of Good Hope. 



[240] 



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